


Stay Hungry

by jeeno2



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Professors, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:42:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: “Get on the bed, Johnson. Now.”It’s the voice she imagines he must use when he’s ordering around underlings in NYU’s history department. Direct. Commanding. A tone of voice that brooks no opposition. Under normal circumstances the way he’s speaking to her right now would just be another reason for her to despise him. But right now, any part of her that might be offended is long gone, and she wants nothing more in the world than to submit to him and give him anything he wants.“Yes, Alpha,” she whispers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hereby present to you the fandom's 89,000th A/B/O fic ;)
> 
> Millions of thanks to hipgrab, without whose beta help (no pun intended...) and support this wouldn't have been possible.

Rey looks up from the hotel registration desk and carefully scans the crowded lobby, hoping to find a friendly face.

Or a  _ familiar _ face, at least.

To her disappointment, she finds neither.

She recognizes some of the people milling around, mostly from blog posts or their publications. But she hasn’t seen anyone yet who she’s actually spoken to before. So far, everyone at this conference has seemed too self-important to even give someone like her--a first-year professor at a state university; and an omega to boot-- the time of day.

Rey slides the little sleeve holding her plastic room key into her purse with a sigh, and rolls her suitcase towards the dimly-lit, swanky-looking bar at the far end of the lobby.

Going up to her room, and hiding out there all night away from all these much older, much more accomplished academics, would ordinarily be very appealing. But she’s not in the mood for that right now. She’s been travelling all day, cooped up in taxis and crowded into middle seats on airplanes. She wants to be around other people for a bit, spread out, and stretch her legs.

She also wants to see Finn and give him a great big hug the minute he finally gets here.

Rey finds a small table for two near the back of the bar, away from a large and kind of rowdy group of middle-aged, spectacle-wearing professors she thinks are from Boston. Once situated, she flags down a server.

“A gin and tonic, please?” she asks politely. Rey may have a PhD in early twentieth-century European history now, but her days of waiting tables in a dive bar aren’t so far behind her that   
she’s forgotten how shitty working in food service can be.

“Sure,” her server says. She’s a young beta—she can’t possibly be older than twenty-two or twenty-three—with a nervous smile that reminds Rey so much of what she’d been like at that age it’s a little uncanny. “I’ll be right out with it.”

“Thanks,” Rey says.

The server hurries away, and Rey unzips her laptop bag. She’s far too nervous about tomorrow morning not to spend at least some of this time waiting for Finn preparing for her presentation. 

She’s long since committed all of her slides, and the paper she’s here to present, to memory, but old habits die hard. Working as hard as she does got her out of London and is why she is where she is today. She sees no reason to change that now.

Two slides into her Powerpoint, Rey’s phone buzzes with a new email. She pulls it out of her bag hopefully, thinking it must be from Finn.

She scowls when she sees who actually sent it:

 

* * *

 

**_From_ ** _ :  _ _ solo.benjamin@nyu.edu _

**_To:_ ** _ johnson.rey@ucd.edu _

**_Subject_ ** _ : Your paper _

 

* * *

 

Rey nearly opens the email out of force of habit. But at the last moment, she decides against it.

She’s anxious enough as it is. No need to add to it by reading whatever scathing comment that asshole just sent her.

She dashes off a quick reply:

 

* * *

 

**_From:_ ** _ johnson.rey@ucd.edu _

**_To:_ ** _ solo.benjamin@nyu.edu _

**_Subject:_ ** _ Re: Your latest paper _

_ Solo, _

_ Whatever you have to say to me, I don’t have time for it. I’m preparing like mad for a presentation at IHPSA and can’t be bothered right now. _

_ Save it for someone who’s actually interested in your opinion. _

_ -RJ _

 

* * *

 

Rey rereads the final line of her email, cringing a little at how dramatic it is. But Ben Solo--a  _ recently-tenured  _ professor at NYU, as he’s fond of reminding her-- has been dogging her steps for years now. From the moment Rey published her dissertation he’s basically been at her throat, challenging her findings as often as possible and poking holes in her research.

She has no idea why Solo’s such an asshole in general, even by alpha standards. Or why he’s especially terrible to her in particular. Either way, she will  _ not _ let him get her all worked up right now.

“Jackass,” she mutters under her breath.

She hits  _ send _ on the email before she can talk herself out of it, shoves the phone in her bag, and gets back to work.

The phone buzzes with another email less than a minute later, but Rey ignores it.

 

* * *

 

If someone had told Rey fifteen years ago that she’d be here right now—a weeklong conference for European historians, in an upscale Chicago hotel—she’d have laughed in their faces.

Of course, fifteen years ago, she and Finn really  _ were _ about the last people you’d expect to see here. They met as teenagers, orphans together on the hard streets of London. And together, they clawed their way out of poverty, surviving bad situations and terrible foster homes side-by-side. 

When Rey decided to apply to university in America on a whim one day, it only seemed natural that her best mate would do the same. To their surprise, their difficult backgrounds and hard work ethics quickly led to college admissions and scholarships, which in turn led to opened doors and opportunities they never could have dreamed of back in London

It wasn’t until much later—when they’d both been in the States for over a year—that they admitted to each other just how terrified they’d been on that first transatlantic flight, both of them clutching the armrests and halfway convinced they were making a terrible mistake.

Fifteen years later, they’re at different universities on different coasts. But they’re still the closest of friends.

Rey knows that close friendships between omegas and betas are rare. Betas tend to keep mostly to themselves, finding the invisible world of scents and pheromones that govern everyone else’s lives far too baffling to even try to understand.

But Finn’s different. True; he’s more than a little mystified those two times each year Rey has to lock herself away in her apartment to keep from clawing her skin off, or tackling the first Alpha who looks at her twice. (Or, sometimes, both.) But Finn understands what she’s going through. On an intellectual level, at least. More importantly, he never judges her for it.

That’s something she can’t say for most other betas she’s known. Especially in academia, where just about everyone is either a cocksure alpha, or a beta with a  _ curriculum vitae _ a mile long and nothing to prove. 

In truth, if it hadn’t been for Finn and his unwavering support all these years, Rey knows she would not be where she is today. She likes to think she’s at least partly responsible for Finn’s success here in the States, too.

He just needs to get here, right now, to save her from this debilitating case of nerves.

All things considered, this first year in her new position is going brilliantly so far. Her new colleagues have been nothing but supportive. But she knows how young she is to have a tenure-track position, and how lucky she is to have it in the first place. Now that she’s at this conference, without her colleagues from her own university and without her best friend, among all these more accomplished academics…

Well. Right now, she feels about as unsure of herself as she did on that flight to New York fifteen years ago.

Rey checks her phone again, willing a message from her best friend to magically appear.

She smiles, relieved, when she sees he sent her a text less than a minute ago:

_ On my way, Peanut. Just left O’Hare _ .

It’s like weight Rey hadn’t even known she carrying has been lifted from her shoulders.

_ Maybe I  _ can  _ do this _ , she muses.  _ Now that Finn’s coming, maybe it’ll all be alright _ .

 

* * *

 

Finn shows up at the hotel bar less than an hour later, wearing a black turtleneck and a pair of faded old blue jeans he loves nearly as much as he loves his wife. He breaks into a broad smile the minute he sees Rey; it pulls a matching one from her immediately.

“You’re here,” Rey says, beaming at him. She stands up from her table and he wastes no time, pulling her into an enormous bear hug right away.

“It’s been way too long, Peanut,” he tells her, smiling into her hair. “It’s so good to see you.”

It  _ has _ been way too long. The last time she saw Finn in person was the day he got married, eighteen months ago, to Rose, who might just be the sweetest alpha Rey’s ever met. “Not as good as it is to see you.”

He pulls back a little to look at her, giving her a quick once over.

“When did you get in?”

Rey picks up her gin and tonic--her second of the night-- and gives it a delicate sip. “About two hours ago,” she says. “My plane from Sacramento was delayed.”

“Ugh,” he says. “You must be exhausted.

Rey shrugs. “I am. A little.”

Finn pulls up a seat at the table and sits down across from her. “Have you looked at the conference schedule yet?” 

Rey shakes her head. “Not really.” She sips her drink again, and sets it down. “I know I present tomorrow morning at nine. And that you present tomorrow afternoon. I haven’t looked at the rest of it yet.”

Finn nods, his expression suddenly a little grim. “Do you want me to tell you the bad news, or do you want to find out about it yourself?”

Rey blanches. “What bad news?”

Finn takes her hand, and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Solo’s presenting tomorrow, too.”

Rey’s stomach sinks. “He’s.. he’s coming here?”

She hadn’t known that. 

_ Fuck. _

_ Why _ hadn’t she thought to look at the list of presenters before now?

“Unfortunately, yes.” Finn digs through his bag for his phone so he can pull up the conference schedule. “Yeah, see--he’s right here. Looks like his presentation’s right after mine. In the same conference room and everything.” He pulls a face. “Lucky us, huh?”

Rey tries to swallow, but it’s hard to manage it around the lump that’s just formed in her throat. “I would have thought Solo’d find a conference like this… I don’t know,” she trails off, shakes her head as she searches for the right words. “Beneath him, or something. Too provincial.” 

She didn’t think the man ever left the east coast.

“Yeah, me too,” Finn agrees. “Guess we thought wrong.”

Even if Rey hadn’t already been nervous about being here, she certainly would be now. 

She sighs. “I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, but the first time Solo ever contacted me, it was to tell me he found my dissertation ‘ _ naive and unoriginal _ .’” Rey makes air quotes, wincing a little as she remember how badly that message had stung. “He ended it by asking if I was  _ certain _ I went to Berkeley for my PhD.” 

“Sorry,” Finn says. She  _ has _ told Finn this story before, of course. Many times. But he puts a sympathetic hand on Rey’s shoulder all the same. Solo’s an asshole to everyone in their small academic community, but even Finn—who tends to see the best in everyone—agrees the guy seems to have a strange sort of vendetta against Rey. “I know he’s the last person you want to see here.”

“He really is,” Rey confirms. She downs the rest of her gin and tonic in one gulp. Normally, she sticks to one drink the night before a big presentation. Tonight, though, she thinks she might just go for a third.

“Wish I could make him go away for you,” Finn says. “I really, really do.”

“Is he as big an asshole in person as he is over email?” Given how much Rey despises Ben Solo she often forgets she still hasn’t officially met him. But it’s true. Aside from the images of him she’s seen on NYU’s history department web site—with his dour expression, his stuffy suits, and those ridiculous, pompous-looking glasses—she’s never actually  _ seen _ Ben Solo in person.  

Finn cocks his head to one side, considering her question. Being in New York himself, Finn’s met Solo a few times at local symposiums. “Sort of? I mean… he’s definitely all alpha, all the time. But it’s more than that. There’s something… just a little bit  _ off _ about the guy.” He pauses, considering his next words. “I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen him crack a smile.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, if he comes to my presentation tomorrow morning you’ll see him smile. I’m sure of it. In fact, if he comes you’ll get to see what he looks like when he’s laughing his head off.”

Finn glances down at the schedule. “Actually… it looks like Hux is giving a talk at the same time you are.” He looks at Rey. “The NYU folks will probably go to that instead.”

Armitage Hux, NYU’s newest hire, only has two years seniority on Rey.  But he acts so smug you’d think he had tenure. Honestly, Rey finds him nearly as insufferable as Solo.

Right now, though... if Hux’s being here keeps Solo from attending her talk, she’ll take it. 

“At least I have Hux,” Rey mutters, bitterly. 

She looks around the bar for the server so she can order another drink.

 

* * *

 

Rey is so exhausted by the time Finn walks her to her room it’s all she can do not to fall into bed immediately.

But she can’t do that. Not yet. She already knows her paper’s weaknesses like the back of her hand, but she’s still too nervous about everything to leave anything to chance. She makes herself some coffee from the room’s complimentary stash and changes into her pajamas.

She’ll go to bed soon, she promises herself. It’s already 10:30; staying up much later than this would be counterproductive.

Another thirty minutes of review. Then she’ll call it a night.

 

* * *

 

 

_ Rey is woken in the middle of the night by a pair of strong arms lifting her from the bed. _

_ Before Rey even realizes what’s happening she is shoved up against the wall of her hotel room by an alpha whose face she cannot see. His hands, she realizes, are  _ massive _. Nearly the size of dinner plates. One of them grabs both of her wrists and holds them up over her head as the rest of him pins her body in place.    _

_ “Fuck,” the alpha grunts against her throat. She can feel him trembling; he sounds at least as desperate as she feels. Rey can’t see him, but she can  _ feel  _ every inch of him--and oh, god, she can smell him. His rich, incredible scent is everywhere, overpowering every single one of her senses and shorting out her brain. His scent is rich leather, and musk, and everything she has ever wanted. It demands she stop thinking entirely and submit to him, to her Alpha, as his cock--hard as a lead pipe, and nearly as thick-- presses urgently against her belly. _

_ The alpha licks a long, possessive stripe down the side of her neck with the achingly soft flat of his tongue, a moment before he scrapes his teeth lightly, but meaningfully, over her gland. _

_ “Yes. Fuck,  _ yes _.” _

_ Rey isn’t sure if she just said that or if he did. But it doesn’t matter, because now he’s slipping his hand inside the waistband of her drenched underwear, and parting her folds with his fingers. _

_ “So wet for me already,” he rasps reverently against her cheek as he touches her. He rubs tight, deliberate little circles against her clit with the tips of two fingers as he begins to rut, hard, against her upper thigh... _

* * *

 

Rey keens her pleasure-- 

\--and abruptly shakes herself awake.

There’s a long moment of disorientation. Several long minutes when her body  _ screams _ at her, demands to know where that alpha is, insists she find him again right this very second and  _ let him fuck her. _

But bit by agonizing bit, lucidity returns. Rey’s heart is pounding like she’s just run a mile and her blood is like fire in her veins, but slowly, eventually, her hotel room comes into full focus again.

When she’s finally able to see clearly, Rey realizes that, holy  _ fuck, _ it was all just a dream.

_ it was just a dream it was just a dream  _

Rey runs her hand through her hair in agitation, and takes in a long, shaky breath. Too late, she realizes that although the faceless alpha was just a dream, his scent is most definitely  _ not _ . It surrounds her, still, even now that she’s awake, blanketing her in a heady cocktail of delicious alpha pheromones she’s as powerless to resist now as she would have been as a newly presented omega off suppressants. She takes another deep breath before she can stop herself--because now that she’s had a taste of this, of him, she can’t  _ not _ . Rey moans at the taste, at the  _ feel, _ of the alpha’s scent in her lungs, her eyes rolling back in her head at what it does to her body--

\--and what it makes her want to do to his.

She starts to rub her thighs together, desperate for any kind of friction. Her slit is already damp with slick as her body prepares itself to take an alpha’s knot. She closes her eyes, her body throbbing with so much unmet need it feels like she might actually die.

This…

This... isn’t normal. 

This should not be happening right now.

With what little brain power Rey has left she does some quick mental calculations. 

Counting backwards, she concludes that, yes-- her next heat should still be more than three months away. 

She looks around the hotel room. There’s her bathrobe hanging on the back of the bathroom door. There’s her suitcase. Her laptop. The suit she’s wearing tomorrow for her presentation.

She’s all alone here. Which is a good thing (though her omega side might disagree). No alpha in full rut broke in here while she slept and rubbed his scent glands all over everything.

But none of this makes sense. There’s nobody else here, but clearly she’s picking up  _ some _ alpha’s scent. She wants to tear off her skin right fucking now to get to him, and…

God, what is  _ happening _ ?

The moan she hears, suddenly, coming from the other side of the wall, is loud, and deep, and hungry. It shocks her speechless, even as it sends a bolt of pure, white heat straight to her core.

On a terrified hunch, Rey glances up at the ceiling and… 

Oh,  _ shit. _

Sure enough, the heating vent for this hotel room is directly above the bed. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she wonders if she’s scenting whoever’s moaning right now in the hotel room next to hers. 

Is his scent carrying over to her through the heating ducts?

“Oh,  _ fuck _ ,” she hears him groan. He sounds like he’s in agony, even through the buffer provided by the hotel room’s thin wall. He sounds desperate. “Oh,  _ fuck _ . Where  _ are _ you, omega? Please...” 

She hears him mumbling unintelligibly for a bit-- and then a moment later, there’s the telltale sound of squeaking bed springs.  

Whoever is in there can smell her, too, then. And it would appear she is having a similar effect on him.

_ Go to him _ , her mind screams at her.  _ He wants you, too. Go to his room, knock on his door, and give him what you  _ both  _ want. _

Unbidden, an image of the alpha from her dream rises to the front of her mind. He’s fuzzy, mostly featureless, but his strong body feels known to her, somehow, as he shoves her up against the wall in her fantasy like he’d just done to her in her dream. He captures her mouth in a searing kiss she’s powerless to resist, even if she wanted to. And—

Before she even realizes it’s happening, Rey’s hand slides inside her soaked underwear of its own volition, like it’s no longer a part of her own body over which she has complete control. Her fingers spread her slick folds as she imagines this man, this alpha, her body desperate for release.

She’ll need to ask for a different room first thing in the morning. Really, she should do it right now. But she doesn’t trust her traitorous body not to knock on this perfect stranger’s door if she leaves her room. Not if he smells this good when they’re still separated by a wall. She does  _ not _ fuck alphas she doesn’t even know, and she has no intention of starting tonight.

No matter how good he smells.

Tomorrow—after she’s gotten some sleep; after she’s made herself come at least a half dozen times—she’ll go to front desk and get this mess sorted.

For now, though…

For now, she needs to get this over with as quickly as possible. Her insides are a tangle of mindless need, she’s getting wetter by the second, and she won’t be able to sleep a wink until she gives in to it.

Rey tears down her underwear with one shaking hand hand and shoves the other between her thighs, groaning so loudly at the press of her fingertips against her clit the alpha on the other side of the wall will almost certainly be able to hear her. But she’s past caring about that now. Every single one of her senses is full of nothing but alpha,  _ this _ alpha, and her clit, her cunt—her entire body-- is throbbing with need for him.

Before Rey can stop herself from doing it she imagines what it would be like—what it would  _ feel _ like—to have this alpha’s knot inside her, hot and pulsing and filling her to bursting. She knows the fingers of her left hand are a poor substitute, but she left her dildo with the knot attachment at home and she  _ has _ to have something inside of her, right now, or she will  _ die _ from want, she  _ knows _ she will.

She’s already so wet-- so ready for an alpha,  _ this _ alpha, to take her, fuck her, have his way with her--that her four fingers slide inside with shocking ease, and when she moves them, craning her arm at an awkward angle so she can stroke her front walls, she screams as her orgasm races down her spine and knifes through her.

She has a moment’s respite as her breathing slows and her heart rate approaches something resembling a normal rate. But then the alpha in the next room moans again, his bed resumes its rhythmic squeaking--and it’s like the orgasm she just had never happened.

“Fuck,” Rey whimpers, her fingers at her clit once more.

 

* * *

 

 

Rey’s alarm goes off far too early the next morning, blasting her awake after what feels like only a half an hour of fitful rest.

She groans, and fumbles around on the nightstand until she manages to shut the damn thing off. To her relief, the alpha’s scent is much more muted than it was last night. Or maybe she’s just adjusted to it. Either way, Rey no longer feels like a young omega on the verge of her first hard heat. Which is a huge relief. She gets out of bed, and is able to think clearly enough to shower and dress, and then to gather up the things she’ll need for this morning’s presentation, without wanting to break down the door to the room next to hers and demand the alpha inside it fuck her up against the wall.

A small victory, really. But she’ll take it.

Rey examines herself in the full-length mirror hanging on the wall by the tv. She looks tired. But she doesn’t think anyone looking at her will automatically think she spent most of the night in agony, making herself come with her own fingers again, and again, until she finally passed out from exhaustion.

“Right,” she mutters. “Presentation first. And then, after that’s over, I’ll ask for a different room.”

She opens the door and steps into the hallway—

\--and immediately runs into the scent that drove her crazy all night. It hits her as if she’d walked face first into a brick wall, and she doubles over, clutching her stomach and moaning as a fresh wave of nearly overpowering desire grips her.

She doesn’t see the alpha—she’s too busy staring down at the floral patterns on the hotel carpet in a feeble attempt to hold on to what’s left of her sanity—but she knows,  _ feels _ , that he’s here, right beside her, his eyes on her as she writhes in agony.

And then, right in her ear, and in the same low voice she heard last night through the wall, she hears: “Oh,  _ fuck _ .”

She turns her head so she can look up at the speaker (because she  _ can’t _ not look up; she  _ has _ to look up, the very sound of his voice  _ compels _ her to look up).

In the span of less than one second Rey’s world comes crashing down around her.

Her eyes go wide with shock.

No.

_ No _ .

Oh, god.

“Rey Johnson,” Ben Solo says, sounding stunned. 

Ben. Solo. 

Ben  _ fucking _ Solo is the alpha she smelled all night. The alpha she fantasized about all night. They’ve never met in person, but this is unquestionably him. She’d recognize his smug face anywhere, because it’s practically everywhere--on all the glossy promotional materials NYU uses to tout its history program; on blogs, and journal articles, and everything in between.

She takes the opportunity to look at him, now that he’s here, standing right in front of her and… smelling the way he is. She has to crane her neck a little to see all of him. Because he’s…  _ really _ tall. Finn never mentioned that detail before. Neither do any of NYU’s promotional materials, come to think of it. But then again, why would they? He’s dressed in an immaculate charcoal grey suit that fits like he was born for it, impeccably tailored and likely worth more than she made her first month teaching. His dark red silk tie is just barely loosened, which gives him a slightly rumpled air--as does the way he wears his hair, artfully messy and kept a little long over his ears.

His eyes are dark, and his pupils are dilated as he stares at her the same way she knows she’s staring at him.

He looks like sex on a stick, she realizes with a sudden jolt. 

She wants to slap him across the face.

_ Fuck. _

This  _ cannot _ be happening. 

“Ben Solo,” she manages to croak, somehow.

“This… this isn’t possible,” Solo stammers. He sounds at least as horrified by this development as she is.

Which makes sense, given how much he hates her.

She looks away, because there’s just no way this could possibly be more awkward. In the process, she catches sight of the front of Solo’s slacks, the front of them tenting out dramatically with what looks like an enormous erection. 

Her eyes widen.

He’s… huge.

_ Yes _ ! the omega part of her shouts in delight.

_ No!  _ the rest of her screams.

But before Rey can say anything to him--before she can fully process anything about this insane situation--Ben awkwardly straightens first his posture, and then his tie.

He clears his throat, and then practically sprints past her down the hall to the elevator bank.

As the elevator carries him to the first floor, where the conference is set to begin in just a few minutes, Rey closes her eyes and sags against the wall.

How the hell is she going to survive this next week?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just like my last fic, I plan (hope?) to update once per week. Right now, Thursday night looks like the winner. :)

Somehow, Rey manages to pull herself together enough to make it to the small conference room on the first floor where she’ll be presenting.

A guy from the hotel’s tech support is already there when she arrives, checking to see that the clicker she’ll be using works and that the projector’s turned on. He gives her a weird, sideways glance when she comes in—which either means he’s able to scent how distracted she is, or she looks like a fucking disaster. Maybe both.

Either way, Rey takes it as a bad sign.

She checks her phone, and sees she showed up with only seven minutes to spare. Not ideal; but at least she isn’t late. Given what just happened it could have been much worse.

She’s the only person from the conference here so far. Most others are probably still sleeping off their jet lag or only just now arriving at the conference, Rey muses. She usually prefers to present to a packed room; rows of empty seats have always rattled her far more than a big audience. Right now, though, she doesn’t have the strongest grip on herself. Or on reality, for that matter. She feels about five minutes away from snapping, and storming through this hotel until she finds Ben Solo and shoves him up against the nearest wall.

Right before punching him.

Really, it would be for the best if no one else showed up at all.

Rey pulls up her PowerPoint and scrolls through the slides, trying hard to focus on them as she wills her heart rate to slow and her breathing to return to normal.  

She can’t let the fact that she’s… drawn to that jackass, for some reason, distract her. No matter how good he looks in that fucking suit and no matter how incredible he smells.

No. She is here to present her paper, not go after some asshole alpha’s knot. And presenting her fucking paper is exactly what she’s going to do.

Finn walks into the room two minutes before she’s scheduled to begin and finds a seat in the front. He grins at her, but as soon as he gets a good look at her face his smile slips.

“Peanut,” he says, eyes wide. He sounds concerned. Being a beta, he can’t scent what she’s going through. She must look absolutely terrible for him to react this way.

 _Well... that’s just great._  

Finn walks over to her and takes her hand. “What’s wrong?”

For half a second, Rey considers lying. She could tell him nerves got the better of her last night and kept her from sleeping.

But this is Finn. Her best friend in the world.

She can’t lie to him about this. It’s too big.

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.

“It’s… Ben Solo.”

Finn scowls. “What did that asshole do this time?”

“He… um. He didn’t exactly _do_ anything.” Rey pauses. “Not intentionally, anyway.” Finn’s staring at her now in open confusion, but Rey can’t meet his eyes. She focuses, instead on an invisible spot of nothing just beyond his right shoulder.

“What?”

Rey takes a deep breath. (The last time she took a deep breath she got a lungful of the most potent alpha hormones she’s ever scented in her life. She shoves that thought aside.) “He… um. His hotel room is next to mine, apparently. And last night I… I was able to scent him through the heating vents.”

A pause. “Okay?”

Rey clears her throat. Looks at her fingernails, the floor-- at anything and everything but Finn, who seems to be getting more worried with each passing second. “And I... “ She pauses. How can she admit this to him? “I… _reacted._ I think he did too.”

Finn blinks at Rey several times, not comprehending, before what she’s telling him finally sinks in.

Eventually, though, he closes his eyes and groans.

“Oh, no. Rey _._ ”

Rey buries her face in her hands. “I didn’t know it was him at first. I just… I just woke up from an _incredible_ dream and… and the only thing I could scent, the only thing I _wanted_ to scent, was the alpha next door.” She shakes her head, still having trouble believing any of this is actually happening. “Finn, it took all my restraint not to break down his door and beg him to… to…”

_To grab me, throw me on his bed, and fuck me until I forgot my name._

She doesn’t finish the thought out loud. She can’t admit that part to anyone. Not even to Finn.

“But you didn’t,” Finn says, flatly. “Right? You didn’t go to his room.”

Her eyes snap to his. “Oh. No.” She shakes her head. “No. I stayed in my room, and I…”

_Made myself come again, and again, until I was so delirious and exhausted I passed out._

Neither of them say anything else for a long moment. It isn’t until other people start filing into the room, yawning and checking their schedules to make sure they’re in the right place, that Finn seems to find his words.

“Are you okay?” Finn’s voice is low so that no one else can hear him. “Because if you’re not, I will kill him.”

Rey puts her hand on his arm. “He may be an asshole, but this isn’t his fault.” She pauses, and bites her lip, because now she’s defending Ben Solo and twenty-four hours ago she never thought she would live to see the day. But this really _isn’t_ his fault. No more than it is hers.

 _God_ , biology is a bitch sometimes.

“Fine,” Finn concedes. “Not his fault. Are you okay, though?”

Again, Rey wants to lie to him. She wants to tell him it’s all right, that it’s just one of those things that happens sometimes if she’s stressed, or if she’s forgotten a few days of suppressants.

But none of that is true. Nothing like this has _ever_ happened to her before outside of a heat. And she is the farthest thing right now from okay.

“No,” she admits in a small voice that doesn’t sound like her own. “I’m not.”

The room is nearly at capacity, now, full of professors showing up at the last minute to hear her paper on ground troops’ movements in the first half of World War I. The tech guy comes up behind her and taps her on the shoulder.

“You’re on, Professor Johnson,” he says.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Finn murmurs. He gives her a small, sympathetic smile. “In the meantime, pull it together. You have to. This presentation’s a big deal.” He puts a hand on her shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze.

Rey nods. Takes another deep breath. “I just need to make it through the next hour.” One more hour. That’s all. She’ll give this presentation, answer any questions people might have…

… and then she’ll go to hotel registration and ask for a different room.

“You got this, Peanut,” Finn says. He smiles at her again, and makes his way back to his seat. “Knock us dead.”

Rey wishes she had half as much confidence in herself as Finn does.

But that’s nothing new.

 

* * *

 

When it’s over, Finn bounds up to Rey and gives her a great big hug.

“That was fantastic,” he says, grinning.

The woman who’s standing beside Finn nods in agreement. “That was a fascinating presentation, Rey.”

Rey turns to face her—a tall, willowy alpha who carries herself with an effortless grace Rey would kill to have. She can’t quite place this woman, but she’s almost certain she’s met her somewhere before. She’s not used to getting this kind of candid praise; especially not from alphas. But now that this talk is over her nervousness about this conference is mostly behind her.

She decides to take the compliment in stride.

“Thank you,” she says earnestly. “And thanks for coming to this. I know it’s early in the day.”

The woman shrugs, and smiles. “I’m from the east coast. The time change was on your side. Either way, I didn’t want to miss this one.” She pulls a business card from her briefcase and slides it across the podium to Rey. “I’m Amilyn Holdo, from Columbia University.”

“Oh! Yes!” Rey smiles back at her. “I remember you.”

And she does, vaguely. It’s all bit of a blur, now, all the interviews and talks she gave when searching for a university position. But a few people stood out. Amilyn Holdo, with her no-nonsense interview questions and regal bearing, was certainly one of them.

“I remember you, too,” Amilyn says. “You wrote one of the best papers on Turkey’s role in the first World War that I’ve ever read from a PhD candidate.”

Rey can feel herself blushing in spite of herself. “Thank you, Amilyn.”

“No, thank _you_ ,” the older woman says. “We’re planning a conference in the spring that I’d love for you to attend.”

“Oh,” Rey says, a little surprised. Columbia was one of the first schools to reject her for a teaching position. She wouldn’t have thought they’d ever invite her to anything. “If my teaching schedule next semester allows it I’d love to come.”

Amilyn smiles. “Wonderful. I’ll email you specifics next week, when I get back home.”

When Amilyn turns to leave, Finn lingers a moment to give Rey another hug.

“I’ll be at that conference, too,” he says, smiling at her. “Fordham’s just down the road.”

Rey smiles at him.

“Good,” she says. “Because you're the only friend I have in New York.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Finn leaves, it’s after eleven o’clock.

Rey’s pretty sure the hotel’s check-out time is eleven. Which means, if there’s an extra room available for tonight, they should be able to switch her now.

Rey quickly stuffs her laptop into her bag with shaking hands. The nerves and adrenaline that always kick in during presentations had pushed all thoughts of Ben Solo out of her mind, but only temporarily. With her talk over and nothing left to distract her, the reality of Rey’s fucked up situation comes rushing back.

With a quiet groan, Rey steps down from the raised platform at the front of the room. She shuts off the overhead light and closes the door before making her way to the registration desk.

When she gets to the hotel lobby, though, and sees who’s already at the front desk, she stops dead in her tracks.

A small part of Rey had been hoping she’d never have to see Solo – or scent him; or even have to _think_ about him—ever again. Clearly that had been too much to hope for. Because there he is now, less than twenty feet away from her, aggressively leaning forward over the registration counter. He’s practically shouting at the omega hotel employee on the other side of it, and doing it so loudly that everyone in the lobby must be able to hear him.

Rey hides herself as best she can behind the ornate water feature in the center of the lobby. She takes this opportunity to get another good look at him, eyeing the way his charcoal grey suit fits him like a glove and noting his artfully mussed dark hair. She closes her eyes and, tentatively, breathes in through her nose, just to see how far away she’s able to scent him.

It turns out to be a huge mistake. However far away she’s standing from him right now, it’s obviously not far enough. His scent fills her lungs and her legs instantly turn to jelly, her mind suddenly flooded with graphic images of all the things her omega hindbrain wants this asshole of an alpha to do to her.

And of all the things that same part of her wants to do to him.

Rey groans quietly, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, willing her body to stop _reacting_ to him.

“I don’t _care_ if the hotel is booked solid the rest of the week,” Rey hears Solo snarl over the loud static roaring in her ears. She inches a little closer to him; just so she can get a better look at his face, she tells herself. She realizes that he looks at least as exhausted right now as she feels. He must not have slept much last night, either. (She will _not_ let herself think about what that means. She will _not_ think about all of those quiet, desperate moans she’d heard on the other side of that wall, or what he must have been doing to himself to make his mattress squeak. She needs to keep it together until she can get checked into a different room, as far away from his as possible.)

(She will _not_ humiliate herself in front of this man.)

“But, sir,” the hotel employee says imploringly. “There’s literally nothing I can do for you. There _are_ no other rooms.”

Solo slams his fist down on the registration counter so hard it makes Rey jump.

“I present my paper in _three_ _hours_ ,” he growls, putting special emphasis on the last two words. “Because of the condition of my current room I was unable to sleep at all last night. And I will not be able to focus on my work if I’m not given a different room _immediately._ ”

Breathing carefully, and deliberately, through her mouth, Rey takes another few steps towards him--

\--and is startled out of her wits when Solo whirls, suddenly, on his heels, to face her. His eyes are wide, wild, and his nostrils flare as his hands clench into tight fists at his sides.

Whatever else he was about to say to the hotel employee seems seems to have been forgotten. He makes a strange, small, choked noise in the back of his throat as he stares at her.

“It’s... _you_ ,” he grits out in disgust. His eyes rove slowly over her body, an almost predatory look on his face. Like he’s a man starving and she is a meal he cannot wait to devour.

She hates this asshole, she _hates him_ , but fuck if the way he’s looking at her right now isn’t the hottest thing she’s ever seen in her life.

No one’s ever looked at Rey like that before. At least, not outside of one of her heats. That realization causes her to blush, furiously, in spite of herself, and a frisson of excitement shoots right down her spine.

After a long moment, Solo seems to remember himself. With a quiet, nearly imperceptible groan, he tears his eyes from Rey before turning his attention back to the hapless employee who’s been charged with helping him.

“Forget it,” Solo snaps. “I’ll deal with it in my own way.”

Without another word, Ben Solo stalks away from registration and towards Rey.

A moment later he is right beside her.

Rey straightens reflexively, her heart beating a rapid staccato in her chest.

“We need to talk,” he mutters darkly. He abruptly grabs Rey by the arm, his hands so large he’s easily able to wrap one of them all the way around her slender wrist. Rey is so startled that she yelps, inadvertently taking in a large, gasping breath in the process. Another big mistake. His alpha scent _overwhelms_ her now, blotting out all of her brain’s higher functioning and making her suddenly desperate to climb him this man like a tree, right here in the middle of the hotel lobby.

From the look on Solo’s face it’s clear he can tell what she’s thinking. His eyes widen in something that looks a lot to Rey like horror. He bites that luscious, plump, bottom lip of his, caught up in indecision, before dropping her wrist and taking a giant step back from her.

He clears his throat awkwardly.

“We need….to talk,” he says again. His voice sounds much rougher than it did just a minute ago. Like sandpaper. He runs a hand distractedly through his tousled black hair. It looks so soft, and Rey has a nearly irresistible urge to reach out and see if it’s as touchable as it looks. To know what it would feel like, sliding between her fingers.

She swallows nervously. “Okay,” she says. The urge to agree to anything he might ask of her right now is strong -- _too_ strong, some part of her realizes-- and irresistible. She knows nothing good can come of them being around each other long enough to have a conversation. But she doesn’t have the strength to fight this.   

She doesn’t even want to try.

He gently guides her from the hotel lobby by the arm, and she knows it’s too late to turn back now.

 

* * *

 

 

They walk together to the Starbucks at the west entrance to the hotel, no longer touching but close enough to one another that they could be.

The Starbucks is crowded at this hour, full of business people in suits, awkwardly trying to maneuver their rolling suitcases while balancing lattes in their free hands. To an outside observer, Rey guesses she and Solo must look indistinguishable from anyone else here. But to Rey, Solo stands out from the rest of the crowd like a beacon on a dark night.

She can’t seem to keep her eyes off him as she finds them a table for two near the back. He smells positively _indecent_ to her, now that they’re in such close proximity. No matter how hard she tries to keep her eyes to herself her gaze keeps wandering back to him as he orders his drink, pays for it, adds the cream.

As he makes his way back to where she’s waiting for him her eyes take in the light stubble covering his jaw, and his plump, full lips, pressed together right now in a tight, thin line.

And then he’s sitting right across from her, so close their knees practically knock together, the small table they’re sharing and the tall café Americano Solo said he needed to keep a clear head the only things separating them from one other. He’s gripping the cardboard coffee cup like a lifeline between his hands as he stares at her, looking completely bewildered now that they’re here.

“This is not how I imagined our first meeting would go,” he murmurs, so quietly it’s possible he’s talking to himself. “Not at all.”

Rey’s eyes go wide with surprise.

He’d… thought about meeting her?

Really?

 _How_ had _you imagined our first meeting would go_? she almost asks, the words practically on the tip of her tongue. But she doesn’t.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Rey asks instead. She tries to sound blunt, impatient, but the look he’s giving her right now, coupled with how incredible he smells, makes that impossible. Her words comes out quietly, barely above a breathy whisper, and she cringes inwardly at how badly her _omega_ side is betraying her right now.

He pauses, jaw working. “I wanted to talk to you about your... paper,” he says. He clears his throat, and then just like that, his entire demeanor changes. He’s all business, all signs of his earlier confusion and hesitation gone now. He folds his hands in front of him on the table, long fingers laced together. “Naturally. The one I assume you presented today.”

A stab of irritation goes through her, cutting right through the haze of desire she’s been caught up in ever since last night.

She might have known it would be about this.

“I don’t want to talk with you about my paper.”

Solo raises an eyebrow and leans towards her across the table, just a little, narrowing the gap between them just enough that now he is the only thing she is able see.

Or smell.

“You need to talk to _someone_ about it,” he tells her authoritatively, giving off such strong alpha pheromones now--a heady cocktail of dominance and desire--that Rey has to cross her legs to keep from shaming herself completely in the middle of this crowded room. He’s gripping the table, his drink forgotten as he focuses all of his attention on her. She stares down at his hands. They’re so big, and they look so graceful. She refuses to think about the things those hands could do. What they could do to _her._

“Well, I don’t need to talk about anything I’ve written with _you_ ,” she says. (Can he tell the effect he’s having on her, just by leaning in close like this? How badly she wants to feel him, all of him, on top of her, his body crushing her into his mattress? God, she hates being an omega. She could _kill_ him for this.)

“But you do need to talk about it with me,” he replies cooly. “I’m trying to help you. You have potential, Johnson, but you’re clearly not getting adequate guidance at your… institution.” He says _institution_ with so much derision she can practically smell the disdain dripping from his words.

Christ. What an asshole.

“Fuck you,” she spits.

At her words, Solo’s eyes suddenly, unexpectedly, go very wide. A moment later they flutter closed, his grip on the sides of the table tightening so much his knuckles turn white.

He sucks that luscious lower lip of his into his mouth and bites down on it, hard.

He lets out a quiet groan.

“Don’t… don’t say that,” he warns. All the dominance and swagger from a moment ago is gone now. His voice is strained. Pleading with her. “ _Please_.”

Rey blinks at him, confused over what’s going on--

And then, she breathes in.

His scent he’s giving off right now is all the explanation she needs.

“ _Oh_ ,” she murmurs, the sound punched out of her as she realizes that Solo is actually picturing what she just said to him-- _fuck you--_ in real time.

After a very long moment, Solo opens his eyes again. He glares at her, like this whole situation is her fault. His nostrils flare as he tries to keep from breathing in her scent. But his breathing is speeding up, now, and his dilated pupils tell her he’s not managing it too well. She doesn’t dare look down right now but she suspects, by the way he keeps shifting awkwardly in his seat and how he’s still white-knuckling the sides of their little table, that the erection he had this morning is back now, back with a vengeance, thick and hard and straining tight against the front his expensive slacks.

As Rey contemplates this he shifts again, crossing his legs. She can smell the self-loathing and desire practically pouring off of him now, battling for dominance inside his body, and she stares right back at him, transfixed as her own body starts to react to whatever is happening inside his.

“The things I want to do to you right now,” he murmurs, voice low and earnest. Raw. “The things I wanted to do to you last night. I’m on the strongest blockers on the fucking _market_ , Johnson, but I can’t… I can’t even describe how much I want to...”

He trails off. The look that flashed across his face earlier, in the hotel lobby-- predatory; hungry-- is back now, and his eyes rove slowly over her body, making the back of her neck grow hot and her cunt fill with slick.

Rey crosses her own legs, helpless in the face of his intensity, unable to resist the pull of his alpha pheromones that demand she submit to him, right here, right now.

On impulse, before she can talk herself out of doing it, Rey reaches across their small table and grabs his hand. Solo yelps a little in surprise and tries to pull out of her grasp; but Rey can tell it’s a half-hearted attempt, and that he wants, _needs_ , to be touching her right now as badly as she wants and needs to be touching him.

“Johnson,” he chokes out.

Slowly, tentatively, and hating herself more than a little for doing it but powerless to stop herself, Rey begins rubbing her thumb in small, gentle circles along the scent gland at the inside of his wrist. The skin is rough against her thumb, with little ridges and whorls, and Solo _whimpers_ \-- just from her touching him; just from this. The sound of his desperation is enough to pull a quiet groan from her before she even realizes it’s happened.

“One of us needs to switch to a different hotel room,” she murmurs urgently. “Right away.” She’s still holding his hand. She can’t seem to let go of it. Solo’s no longer looking at her, but rather staring down at their hands, at the place where they’re touching one another, utterly mesmerized by the gentle movements of her thumb along his wrist.

He swallows thickly. “No rooms,” he rasps. He squeezes her hand, which sends twin sensations of desire and revulsion racing through her. “There are… there are no extra rooms anywhere in this fucking hotel. I asked about it when I got up this morning, and then again just now when you found me.”

Rey groans, loudly. She doesn’t fail to notice how Solo’s free hand grips the table tighter in response.

“What are we going to do?” she asks, despondent. Solo’s scent is driving her to distraction right now. She needs to get away from him. She’s rooted to the spot.

“I... I don’t know,” he says. There’s a frantic, almost wild tinge to his voice now, a desperate gleam in his eye. “Because I can’t… we _can’t…”_

A mad, horrible idea suddenly occurs to her.

“Maybe...” she begins. She averts her eyes. She can’t look at him when she proposes this; the expression on his face is too intense, and the memory of how badly every single one of his critiques has stung her too fresh in her mind for her to be able to get this out if she has to look at him while she’s doing it.

“Maybe... what?” he prompts.

“Maybe we should... try fucking it out of our systems.”

A long pause.

“ _What?”_

She chances a glance at him then, but looks away again when she sees him gaping at her, open-mouthed.

“I can’t… I can’t stop thinking about you, Solo. Your scent--even the _memory_ of your scent--it’s driving me mad. You’re driving me mad.” She pauses, and bites her lip. “I need to get this, _you,_ out of my head.”

“Johnson, wait--”

“All I can think about right now is you fucking me again, and then again, until I forget my own name.”

At her words, Solo’s eyes go wide. The hand she’s holding starts to tremble.

And then, all at once, he regains his composure.

“I think… I think I can make that happen.” His voice is smooth as silk, all of his earlier signs of panic long gone. He begins to stroke the inside of her wrist now, her own scent gland, with his thumb, mirroring her actions from earlier. Her cunt clenches in anticipation, and her toes curl inside her shoes. “In fact, I can make that happen right now.”

Rey looks down at their joined hands, and intertwines their fingers. His hand twitches a little, but he doesn’t pull it back. She breathes deeply through her nose, because if she’s going to get through this she’s going to need to be as drunk on his pheromones as possible.

It works. Wordlessly, he pulls her to her feet, and then suddenly she’s looking up at him, all six foot three of him, so tall and so dominant and so _alpha_ she has the sudden, nearly irresistible urge to stand up on her tiptoes and taste those infuriatingly plush lips of his right here in this crowded place.

He looks down at her, smirking at her as though he’s able to read her mind. He inclines his head a little, teasingly, so that his mouth is just a hair's breadth away from hers.

“We can go to my room,” he murmurs, his words little puffs of warm air against her lips. “Right now. Come upstairs with me, _omega_.”

She nods. _Yes. Yes, yes._

“Yes,” she breathes, before she can remind herself this is a fucking _terrible_ idea.

He leads her by the hand out of the coffee shop.

She follows him, her heart hammering wildly in her chest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have said this earlier, but I know almost nothing about history academia and even less about NYU. If you know lots about one or both of those things please forgive me for the liberties I take with them in this story. ;)
> 
> Also, the chapter count of this fic is likely going to increase by one or two. Once I've got a final number I'll update the fic accordingly. :D

Solo is on her before the elevator door has even fully closed behind them.

“Your scent,” he mumbles against the sensitive skin of her throat. “I can’t… I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t get  _ you _ out of my head. I’ve tried, for the past twelve hours, I’ve fucking  _ tried,  _ but--”  

He doesn’t finish the thought. He’s got her backed up against the wall of the elevator, the hard edge of the stainless steel button panel digging into the flesh of her back. His lips, teeth, tongue are  _ everywhere _ , starting at the sweet spot where her neck meets her shoulder and licking, nipping, and sucking at her until he’s right on top of her gland.

“Solo,” she breathes. The sound of his name on her lips does something to him, something primal, and he lets out an animalistic growl a moment before he gives her scent gland a long, broad lick with the achingly soft flat of his tongue. They’ve only just started, but her panties are already drenched as his scent consumes her and blots out the rest of the world. God. This  _ asshole _ . “I can’t get you out of my head, either.”

Solo growls again, and moves even closer, the rigid bulge in his pants now pressing insistently against her stomach.

“I don’t know if this will work,” he murmurs urgently into her ear. “Fucking you, I mean. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop, once I’ve—“

But she isn’t here for conversation. She tugs on his hair with both hands,  _ hard _ , and pulls him down into a searing kiss, cutting off the rest of what he’d been about to say.

“Johnson,” he groans against her mouth when they break for air. But he dives back in right away, tracing the seam of her lips with his tongue a moment before he delves inside, tasting her and twining his tongue with hers. She whimpers, helplessly, as he kisses her like his life depends on it.

Rey winds her arms around his neck, pulling him so close she’s no longer certain where she ends and he begins. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then hitches one of her legs up over his hip.

“Fuck,” he grunts against her lips, pushing her even more firmly against the wall. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

The elevator arrives on their floor at some point. Rey’s only barely aware of it, all her attention on the way Solo is kissing her, and how he’s walking her backwards towards his room, guiding her through its open door.

 

* * *

 

The scent in Solo’s hotel room almost brings Rey to her knees.

It had been more than she could bear last night, scenting him through the heating vents connecting their rooms. But that had been nothing compared to this _. _ Everything in this room—the carpeting; the dark gray suit jacket draped neatly over the back of the upholstered armchair; the dark leather briefcase lying on top of the bed –  _ everything  _ smells like sex, like  _ alpha _ , like everything Rey has ever wanted. She wants to strip off her clothes and roll naked in this scent, let it surround her. Let it claim her.

Solo is already halfway to getting her out of her clothes as it is, his large hands steady and sure as they ease her out of her own suit jacket, unbutton her blouse, and reach around to unzip her pencil skirt.

“God,” he murmurs. His lips, his tongue, are on her gland again, drinking in her scent like he can’t get enough of it. He bites down, just a little; the pressure of his teeth on her ridged flesh is almost enough, on its own, to push her over the edge. “I’m losing my fucking mind, Johnson. You’re so…”

He reaches around her and, with one dramatic movement, shoves his briefcase off the bed. It crashes to the floor, papers spilling out of it in all directions. He pulls back and looks at her, pupils blown wide with desire

The knot in his tie is loosened a little from her wandering hands back in the elevator. Rey has a nearly irresistible urge to loosen it further. To run the tip her tongue, back and forth, over his Adam’s apple. To taste his scent at the source.

As Rey stares at him, he begins to undress, tearing off his jacket and tie with alarming speed.

“Bed,” he grits out. His hands go to his belt, to the button of his slacks, to its zipper. A moment later his expensive suit is nothing but a rumpled pile on the floor by his feet. He peels his boxers down his legs, and then he straightens, completely naked before her. 

Even if Rey hadn’t already known what Solo was thinking by his intoxicating scent, the way his cock juts out from his body right now—thick, rigid, and absolutely enormous—would remove all doubt. 

She can’t stop staring at him. She’d suspected Solo was built even before he’d undressed, just from the way he fills out his suit. But nothing could have prepared her for the way he looks  _ out _ of his clothes-- all flat stomach and rippling muscles, and an eight-pack that suggests he must spend every waking moment not working pumping iron at the gym. 

He is, in a word, breathtaking. Every bit the strong alpha the omega side of her is clamoring for right now.

“Solo--” she begins.

He cuts her off with an abrupt shake of his head. He smirks. “Get on the bed, Johnson. Now.”

It’s the voice she imagines he must use when he’s ordering around underlings in NYU’s history department. Direct. Commanding. A tone of voice that brooks no opposition. Under normal circumstances the way he’s speaking to her right now would just be another reason for her to despise him. But right now, any part of her that might be offended is long gone, and she wants nothing more in the world than to submit to him and give him anything he wants.

“Yes, Alpha,” she whispers.

He growls at that—a dangerous, barely-human sound that makes Rey’s knees go weak and the wetness already pooling between her legs to intensify. Half a second later Solo’s large, warm hands are on her hips, and he’s slowly walking her backwards until the backs of her knees hit the mattress. 

“Lie down,” he murmurs, his voice a bit softer now but no less commanding.

All of Rey’s instincts scream at her to comply with his instructions. And she does, wordlessly, nestling her head comfortably on the pillows, anticipation roiling in the pit of her stomach. 

Solo drops to his knees on the floor beside the bed, briefly caressing her thighs with his hands a moment before he dips two fingers into the waistband of her already drenched underwear. He strokes her along her folds with his fingertips, very softly, but with clear intent.

Every nerve ending in Rey’s body is suddenly concentrated right where he’s touching her. She cries out, and thrashes her head from side to side on the pillow as he continues to stroke her, his maddenly gentle touch both too much, and not nearly enough, all at once.

He adds a third finger, moving them in a circular motion just a little to the left of where she so desperately needs him to be. It takes all her restraint not keen his name and  _ beg _ him to fuck her. 

Solo must be able to sense her desperation, because he wastes no time on foreplay after that, tearing her panties down her legs and then shoving her thighs apart.

“I’m going to taste you now,” he tells her, his voice husky and full of promise. She can feel his ragged breath against her, right at the apex of her thighs, and she groans, writhing on the mattress beneath him even as he tries to hold her down with his hands.

She raises her head a litte, so she can see his face. Her heart is racing, and even though he’s only just begun touching her it already feels like she’s on the verge of flying apart at the seams.

When they make eye contact he smirks again, all dark eyes and maddeningly smug superiority, a moment before leaning forward and pressing his lips to her core.

The press of his mouth to her flesh is electric, sending white hot fire coursing through her veins.

“ _ Solo _ ,” Rey whines, too loudly, her teeth clenched and her back arching up off the bed as he slowly draws his tongue up along her folds. He pauses briefly when he reaches her clit, circling it a few times with careful, measured strokes as she thrashes, desperately, beneath his hands. He takes his time with her, teasing her, knowing exactly what she wants but stopping just before he gives it to her, periodically pulling away altogether to rub his stubbled jaw along the sensitive flesh of her upper thigh. 

“You’re mine, omega,” he growls, rubbing his scent glands along her skin. Scenting her as his. “ _ Mine _ .”

_ No _ ! some small, angry part of her thinks distantly.  _ I am  _ not  _ yours _ !

But before she can argue with him his mouth is on her again, his tongue licking at her and lapping at her folds like he will never be able to get enough. Rey’s eyes roll back in her head as the coil in her belly winds tighter, and she collapses once more against the pillows, her protest dying on her lips.

“ _ Yes,” _ Rey agrees instead, whimpering. “Yours.”

Solo groans, loudly, in response.

“You taste amazing,” he murmurs. “You’re so fucking incredible, Johnson..” He’s breathing at least as heavily as she is now, and when he slides two thick fingers inside her tight, wet heat, it’s his moan that reaches her ears, not own. Rey’s dimly aware that he’s rutting against the mattress, now, as he fucks her with his hand and his mouth. The idea that he’s having trouble controlling himself even as he takes her to the brink enhances her pleasure even more, and it isn’t much longer before she’s moaning, too, in time with his heavy breathing.  

Her orgasm comes on her a moment later like a tidal wave, hard and fast and unexpected. His name is a silent scream on her lips as she spasms, hard, on his fingers, her back arched and her mind utterly blotted out with pleasure.

By the time she comes back down to earth Solo is already climbing on top of her, balancing his weight on his forearms and nudging at her entrance with his tip.

She blinks up at him. She takes in his mussed hair, parted lips, and dark, dark eyes.

She shifts a little beneath him, and gasps.

Solo is, she realizes… absolutely  _ huge _ . 

Rey knew that already, of course; has known it since earlier this morning, when she saw him for the first time, wild-eyed and incredulous as he stood in the hallway outside their rooms. But it was one thing to see how dramatically his erection tented the front of his slacks, and another to have that erection pressed insistently against her opening, already leaking precum, with his strong alpha scent surrounding her and overriding all her higher thought processes. His scent compels her to open her legs for him even wider, and so she does, her body now completely under the control of the omega inside her and the alpha on top of her, commanding her with his dark eyes and the magic he just worked on her body with his mouth and hands.

“Yes,” he breathes. He takes hold of his cock in one large hand and slides its tip along her slit, slowly circling her clit. He smirks a little, clearly taking satisfaction in the way his touch makes her squirm and whimper beneath him, despite the fact that she just came moments ago.  “You want this, don’t you.”

It isn’t a question. “Yes,” she confirms immediately, breathless and desperate again. Any remnants of Rey proud, professional identity were obliterated by that orgasm. There is nothing left inside her now but writhing, needy, omega. And yes, she wants this. It’s been less than two minutes, and already her core is growing slick again, preparing her body to take his knot. “ _ Please,  _ Alpa.”  

“You said you wanted me to fuck you so hard you forgot your name,” he reminds her. He leans forward and begins mouthing at the scent gland on the side of her neck, licking it with the tip of his tongue and nibbling its edges with his teeth. She feels like she’s going to die. She’s going to die from this. From wanting him. “Do you still want that?”

He quickens the pace with which he’s teasing her with his tip, spending more time on her clit before dropping back down to her dripping entrance. She groans again, so loudly people in the hallway, in other rooms of this hotel, will surely be able to hear her, hear  _ them,  _ and her head thrashes desperately on the pillow as her entire body screams for more.

“Yes,  _ yes, please--” _

With a loud groan Solo pushes forward, thrusting to the hilt with a single jerk of his hips.

“ _ Oh _ ,” Rey breathes, as her body struggles to acclimate to the pinch and stretch of him inside her.

Rey has fucked alphas before. She knows some omegas choose to go through their heats without one, for one reason or another, but Rey is no martyr. Her heats are ten times more tolerable if there’s an alpha there to see her through them, and so that’s her strategy as often as she can manage it. She’s had multiple partners since presenting, and currently has a small group of reliable alphas she can count on who are clean, pleasant enough to be around, and more than willing to see her through her heats on a no-strings-attached basis.

But Rey has never been with an alpha like Ben Solo. 

“Are you okay?” he breathes against her lips. She’s hardly small, but he fills her to bursting, leaving room for nothing else but him, him,  _ him. _

“Yes,” she tells him. She tries to move her hips beneath him,  _ needs _ to feel the rough friction of him moving inside her. But he’s too heavy, and he’s pinning her down, keeping her immobile. It’s driving her mad. She’s five seconds away from losing her mind. “I’m… I’m okay, but--”

“But, what?” he asks teasingly. He’s mouthing at her gland again. “What is it, little one?”

A second orgasm rips through her without warning at this strange, new endearment, and this time her scream is not silent. His name tears from Rey’s throat as she shakes apart, her body still pinned beneath his to the bed. She wails and cries out as her cunt clenches hard around his cock, and as her universe collapses down to the place they are connected.

Only then does Solo begin to move. The tight little flutters he can feel from her orgasm seem to spur him into action, and he growls into her ear as he starts to fuck her in earnest. His movements are hard, and fast, and merciless, right from the start, all the gentle touches and kisses from before over now. Gone is the condescending history professor from one of the most prestigious universities in the world. In his place is something wild and primal, raw and untamed, moving above her, pounding into her so hard he’ll likely leave bruises inside.

It doesn’t take long for Rey to feel the beginnings of his knot start to swell inside her. Maybe getting her off twice already has worn out his body’s patience; maybe he was always going to come quickly once they got started. He tries to fight it, she can tell, eyes squeezed tightly shut and his jaw clenched. But Solo’s pace does not slow, and now her hips are moving nearly as quickly as his as her body takes over and tries to match his frenetic pace, stroke for stroke for stroke.

He tries, Rey can tell; but he can’t stave it off for long. 

She has a brief, fleeting moment of panic. He’s just so big, so big so big  _ so big _ , and her body, already stretched to capacity by his massive girth, surely can’t take any more. 

But then his knot forms, stretching her  _ beyond _ capacity as it locks his body to hers-- and somehow, impossibly, she takes it all.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he grunts, a moment before his hips slam once more, hard and forcefully, into her body. 

And then he stills, his body a solid weight on top of her as he pulses. 

 

* * *

 

 

Afterwards, Rey watches him as he dresses. She’s still in his bed, curled up comfortably on her side with a bent arm under her head serving as a pillow. She’s full of his cum--it seeps slowly from her body as she lies here, addled and drowsy--and full of all the warm and fuzzy hormones that always follow whenever an alpha fucks her. 

She sighs, sated and content, watching him. 

Solo pulls on his dress socks and his boxers first, then paces around the room a little, muttering to himself with his hands clasped tightly behind his back.

It’s only when Rey clears her throat that he stops pacing, and turns to face her. He looks more relaxed now than he had an hour ago. No surprise, really; she’s more relaxed, too. The strong alpha scent that had driven her to near madness all night is still here, still permeating everything in this room. But her tolerance to it is much higher now that she’s had him inside her. It’s still distracting, of course. Still tempting. But Rey’s finally able to think straight in a way she hadn’t been before.

It gives her hope that maybe she’ll survive this week-long conference after all.

“I need to present my paper now,” he tells her. His voice is careful, calm. Modulated. It’s virtually unrecognizable from what it had been just thirty minutes ago, when he was still knot deep inside her and telling her in filthy, unforgettable terms all the things he wanted to do to her. “I have to get dressed and be downstairs in—“ he pauses, looks at his wristwatch—“In twenty minutes.”

Rey nods and sits up, letting the bedsheets fall to her waist in the process. His eyes drop to her bare breasts, and Rey feels twin flushes of desire and pride snake through her. “All right,” she says. “I’ll just get my things and go, I guess.”

“Come to my talk.”

Rey pauses, and stares at him.

“What did you say?”

He bites his lip. “Come to my talk,” he repeats. “It’ll be a good talk. A hell of a lot better than what you’re being exposed to by those idiots at Davis.” He swallows, and pauses again, considering his next words carefully. “It’ll be good for you. The paper I’m presenting is better than what  _ you  _ presented here by a mile.”

At Solo’s words, the reality of this stupid, fucked-up situation comes crashing down around her.

He is an asshole. An unbelievably hot asshole who smells better than any human being has the right to smell, and an asshole who can fuck better than any alpha she’s ever been with before in her life. But an asshole nonetheless.

And she is... the world’s  _ biggest _ hormone-addled idiot.

Feeling like she’s just been woken from a pleasant dream by a bucket of ice water being dumped on her head, Rey shoves the blankets off her lap and practically leaps out of bed. She stalks, stark naked, over to where he stands, and shoves her finger right in his face.

“You…  _ asshole _ ,” she spits, her hands shaking. She looks around the room for her scattered clothing and starts pulling things on at random. “You… fucking  _ asshole _ .”

He frowns at her as she dresses, looking perplexed. And displeased. “What are you doing?”

It’s a simple question, of course. But it’s full of alpha undertones that command her to  _ stop _ doing whatever it is she’s doing, and she just doesn’t want to deal with any of that bullshit right now. She shoves those unspoken alpha implications to the side as best she can, along with that infuriating omega voice in the back of her head warning her to do whatever it is he tells her to do.

“I’m getting dressed, Solo.” She grabs her shoes and shoves her feet into them. She can’t find her hose, but she doesn’t care. She’ll get another pair later. “Isn’t it obvious that’s what I’m doing? I thought people at NYU knew  _ everything _ .” She looks around the room for her suit jacket. She knows she was wearing it when she came here an hour ago. She needs to find it, because as soon as she leaves this room she is  _ never _ interacting with this jerk again.

Solo’s frown deepens. He puts his hand on her arm. “Johnson, wait a minute—“

She throws it off, and tries hard to ignore the stunned look on his face when she does. “Fuck off, Ben Solo,” she tells him.

In the end, she decides she can get a new suit jacket, too. She throws open the door to his hotel room, storms through it, and slams it shut behind her without a backwards glance.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes a few minutes of Rey’s concerted pounding, but eventually Finn opens the door to his hotel room, bleary-eyed and looking very much like he’d just woken up from a mid-afternoon nap.

“Peanut,” he says on a yawn. He closes his eyes, and rubs them with the heels of his hands. “What… what are you doing here?” He takes in her messy hair, her rumpled suit—but it isn’t until his eyes land on the row of deep purple love bites along the side of her neck that he seems to realize why she’s here.

When he gets it, his eyes go wide.

“Don’t say anything,” Rey mutters. “Please, Finn.”

“Rey,” he says, his tone serious. “Please, tell me you didn’t just—“ 

“I did.” Rey shifts her weight awkwardly from foot to foot, staring at the floral pattern on the hotel’s carpet rather than at her best friend. “I did, okay? Look—can I just come in? Please?” She swallows, and closes her eyes. “I can’t stay in my own room anymore.”

Finn’s eyes are still round as saucers, but he nods. “Of course you can come in.” He opens the door wider for her, and steps to the side to make room for her as she wheels in her suitcase.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the increased chapter total for this fic. Forgive me?

Rey’s decision to simply avoid Ben Solo for the rest of the conference does not go well as she’d hoped it would.

She sees him again that night at the cocktail party sponsored by the Chicago schools hosting the conference. His back is to her through most of it, but she can somehow feel his eyes on her all the same, his intoxicating scent impossible to ignore no matter how much white wine she drinks and no matter how many other people she talks to.

She sees Solo later that night, too, as people pile into Ubers for a post-dinner excursion into the city. He’s standing with Hux and a few other people from NYU she doesn’t know, dressed in dark jeans and a close-fitting burgundy sweater. He looks so nonchalant and almost bored with all of this that anyone else would probably think he didn’t want to be here.

But Rey isn’t fooled. She sees him glance her way multiple times as they wait in front of the hotel for their respective rides, his dark eyes quickly darting away again every time she catches him watching her.

And his scent…

If the way Solo keeps looking at her weren’t telling her everything she needed to know about what he’s thinking right now, his scent surely would. He smells like essence of alpha, even from twenty feet away--powerful, and compelling.

And aroused.

Rey has to dig her fingernails into her palms to keep herself from going over there, right now, and taking back everything she said to him in his hotel room.

“Our ride’s here,” Finn says, cutting into Rey’s tumultuous thoughts. She breathes a sigh of relief, thrilled for a reason to get out of here and away from Solo, finally. Finn looks up, and waves at the green Subaru that will be taking them to some dive bar near Second City. “Rose just texted. She’ll meet us there when she gets in.”

Finn’s grinning, now, at the thought of his wife, even though they’ve only been apart about twenty-four hours. Despite the mess of thoughts and emotions currently battling for dominance inside her, Rey can’t help but smile at how terribly sweet his and Rose’s relationship is.

“It’ll be so good to see her again,” she tells him, honestly.

Finn’s smile grows. “Can’t argue with that.”

Their ride pulls up in front of them, and Finn opens the door for Rey to climb in first.

 

* * *

 

 

A few minutes after the Uber driver has pulled away from the curb, Rey’s phone buzzes with a new email.

“Oh, hang on,” she says to Finn. She slides her phone from her purse, and sees it’s from Amilyn Holdo, the Columbia professor who approached her after her talk this morning.

“What is it?” Finn asks.

“It’s from Holdo,” Rey says. She opens the email, and smiles. “Looks like she sent details about that conference in New York.”

Rey quickly reads through the email, skimming over the call for proposals, until she gets to the date of the conference in bold type near the bottom. When she sees the date it’s being held, her heart sinks. She shakes her head, and puts her phone back into her purse with a sigh.

“Shit,” she mutters. “I don’t think I can go.”

Finn frowns. “Why not?.”

Rey looks at him, and bites her lip. Finn won’t understand. Not really. “I mean, this conference would be a great opportunity. But…”

 _But_ , the conference is next March 4th and 5th. If everything goes as it always has, ever since she first presented as an omega as a young teenager, this conference will take place immediately after the end of her next heat. The last time Rey ventured outside of a secure space during a heat she’d basically gone mad, and had nearly gotten herself arrested for indecent exposure.

Rey doesn’t even want to think about what could happen if she had to endure a cross-country flight during one of her heats. Spending hours in a confined space with a whole bunch of other people, all of them breathing the same recirculated air she is, at the same time she’s soaking through a new pair of underwear every thirty minutes, sounds like a scene out of one of her worst nightmares.

“What is it?” Finn prompts, when she doesn’t finish the thought.

Rey runs a hand through her hair distractedly. She might as well tell him. “Well… my next heat is probably going to happen right around then. I won’t be able to travel.”

Finn averts his eyes. “Oh,” he says, sounding a little embarrassed. Which Rey knows he can’t help. He is her oldest friend, and she knows he will support her to the ends of the earth. But there are some things he just doesn’t quite understand. Not for the first time, Rey wonders how he manages things with Rose, his alpha wife. Perhaps an alpha’s ruts are easier for betas to live with and to understand than heats are.

Not that Rey has anything to compare it to.

Suddenly, a thought occurs to her. “I suppose I could fly to New York a week or two early,” she muses. She grabs her phone, and flicks to the heat matching app she’s used a couple of times when her go-to alphas haven’t been available. “I could, you know. Fly out early, find someone in the area who checks out clean, and…. yeah.” She nods, mulling it over. “I’d have to make sure I was sequestered from other people at the conference so no one knows what’s happening. And I should probably stay in a different hotel from them altogether. But, yeah. Yeah.” Rey nods, as the plan begins to firm up and take shape in her mind. “This could work.”

This _could_ work. She could find an anonymous alpha to fuck her brains out for three days, and then clean herself up in time to attend what should be an incredible conference. She could even talk to her doctor about giving her extra medication to make certain her heat happens exactly as scheduled.

But Finn just frowns at her. “No way,” he says bluntly. “Look. Rose and I know a lot of people in New York.” He puts his hand on hers. “Let us help you, all right? We’ll find someone who can help you out.” He swallows. Looks away. “No apps.”

Rey feels a small pang of irritation go through her at Finn’s words. Heat matching apps have come a long way since they first came out a few years ago. It’s not hard to find someone you’re compatible with, and the lengthy questionnaire people need to complete to be added mostly weeds out the creeps.

But Finn’s looking at her so earnestly. He wants to help. Of course he does. He’s _Finn._ And she can’t really fault him for not understanding this.

Plus, she trusts him. Whoever he and Rose find for her is bound to be perfectly fine.

She puts her phone away, convined. “Sure,” she tells him. She pats his hand. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Finn nods. “Good,” he says. He pauses. Bites his lip. “Well. Not _good_.” He swallows, clearly uncomfortable. “But… you know. Better.”

Rey sighs, and closes her eyes.

She refuses to think of the one alpha male she knows in New York who could also potentially help with this heat. Because he is _not_ a viable option and she _will not_ consider him.

“That’s one problem solved, then,” Rey says. “Thank you, Finn.”

 

* * *

 

 

The bar they’ve picked for tonight is crowded. _Too_ crowded.

Ordinarily, Rey wouldn’t mind going to a loud, cheesy bar the night after a talk. But she’s operating on virtually no sleep, and is still reeling from the mess with Solo. This place is a cacophony of loud sounds and strong smells, and it’s all just a little too much to handle.

“Do you want to leave?” Finn asks, loudly so she can hear him over the din. He frowns as a group of young, very drunk omegas rattles past them, giggling and stumbling into one another on their way to the karaoke stage. “We can go somewhere else, if you want.”

Rey watches as one of the omegas takes the stage and clumsily grabs at the microphone. (She’s wearing a pink plastic tiara, and a silly veil that only goes down to the top of her mating gland. This must be some kind of bachelorette party, Rey realizes. This must be the bride.)  

Then she shrugs.

“We might as well stay,” she says. “I didn’t see anyplace better on the drive over. By the time we got to a different neighborhood I’ll probably be half-asleep.”

They manage to find a small table for themselves in the back. Very loud, very drunk people keep bumping into their chairs as they walk past them on their way to the bathrooms. It’s more than a little annoying; but at least she and Finn don’t have to stand at the bar.

“What do you want?” Rey asks Finn as she looks over the drinks menu. Oh; it looks like they serve Mai Tais here. In great big plastic coconut shells. Suddenly, Rey’s never wanted anything more in her life than she wants one of those giant Mai Tais. “Do you want a stupid cocktail? Because I kind of want a stupid cocktail.”

Finn nods. “Yeah. Sure.” He grabs the menu from her. “Is their Moscow Mule is any good?”

Rey’s just about to ask him how she’s supposed to know the answer to that -- she’s never been here before, either -- when her phone buzzes. As Finn looks over the menu, she pulls out her phone to see who texted her.

**You switched rooms**

Rey blinks at her phone, trying to make sense of the text. It’s not from anyone in her contacts. It’s from someone with a 212 area code, but she doesn’t know anyone with a 212 area code.

Does she?

She’s just about to shove her phone back into her purse, leaving the creepy text unanswered, when another one appears.

**Whoever’s in your old room now doesn’t smell like you, Johnson**

All at once, everything clicks into place.

Rey’s heart is suddenly hammering in her chest a mile a minute.

Solo has her number. How is that _possible_?

Rey glances up at Finn to confirm he’s still engrossed in the menu and not paying attention to her. And then she texts Solo back with shaking hands.

_How did you get my number?_

She racks her brain, trying to remember if she gave it to him at the coffee shop, earlier, when she was so desperate for his knot she’d have done just about anything. Or did she maybe give it to him after he fucked her, when she was too addled with fuzzy omega hormones and his intoxicating alpha scent to know what was good for her?

**It’s in the conference materials, Johnson. Along with your email and your mailing address.**

Oh.

Right. Of course.

Rey cringes, feeling like an idiot.

_Okay, fine_

_but why are you texting me?_

**You left some things in my room. I assume you want them back?**

Rey winces

Shit.

Her nylons. Her suit jacket.

She’d nearly forgotten about them.

The nylons, of course, are easy enough to replace. But the suit she wore today was really expensive. And the skirt looks weird without the jacket.

In truth, she _does_ want the jacket back.

“Rey,” Finn says, done with the menu.

But Rey doesn’t hear him. She stares at Solo’s text, trying to think of a way to get her jacket back without having to actually interact with him.

“ _Rey,”_ Finn says again. Much louder this time. Then he snaps his fingers in front of her face. That finally gets her attention. She nearly jumps out of her chair in surprise.

“Jesus!” she says, hand to her throat, heart pounding. She shakes her head, and blows out a breath. “You freaked me out.”

“You’re freaking _me_ out,” he says. “Are you all right? Who are you texting?”

Rey pauses. Bites her lip. “No one.”

Finn gives her the kind of side-eye only someone who’s known you half your life can give. “No one?”

She says nothing.

“Rey.”

She pushes back from the table and stands up. “I just... need to go tell him off, okay?” She gathers up her purse, and holds it beneath one arm. She’s shaking. She needs to stop shaking. “I’ll be right back.”

Finn levels her with another look. “I’ll be waiting for you out here, okay?”

But she’s already halfway to the ladies’ room.

 

* * *

 

 

Somehow -- she’s not sure exactly how-- Rey manages to shove her way past another horde of loud, drunk women and snags an empty bathroom stall. Once inside it, she locks the door, closes the lid to the toilet, and sits down.

She pulls out her phone. Solo has sent two more texts since she left Finn.

**Do you want them back?**

**If so, where are you so I can bring them to you?**

Rey closes her eyes and tries to think.

Responding to these texts would be the worst kind of mistake. She should never speak to this asshole, or even interact with him electronically, ever again.

She should block his number. Delete all these texts.

But the memory of his alpha scent lingers in her subconscious, heady and powerful, even hours since she was last in his arms. Her instincts command her to pay attention to him, no matter how much the rest of her cringes in revulsion at the very idea. Before she can stop herself from doing it, Rey’s fingers fly over her phone, tapping out a response.

_i'm not in the hotel_

_i’m at a bar_

_and yes I do want them back_

**All right. I can leave them at the front desk for you if you want.**

**Or leave them with someone else.**

**I suspect you don’t want to come to my room and get them.**

**Am I right about that?**

Rey feels an odd sort of twist in her gut. He’s more intuitive than she gave him credit for.

At least-- about some things.

_leave them at the front desk_

_i guess_

And then, on reflex, she adds:

_thank you_

**Of course. They’re your things. I have no right to keep them.**

Rey pauses, and frowns at his odd choice of words.

No right... to keep them?

Why on earth would he _want_ to keep them?

Before she can ponder that for too long, though, more texts appear.

**Much as I’d like to hold onto them forever.**

**They smell like you, Johnson.**

**So much like you.**

Rey rereads his texts again. And then again.

She closes her eyes as a terrible idea comes to her.

Solo is the biggest asshole she has ever met in academia. Maybe ever. She should tell him to never contact her again. She should block his number. She should--

But her omega hindbrain is waking up now. Coming to the fore. Her cunt is already beginning to fill with slick, just from this small handful of suggestive words. The longer she sits here, reading his texts, the more control that hidden part of her winds its creeping way over every single one of her higher thought processes-- and takes over.

Rey crosses her legs as a hot, familiar, sticky warmth slowly trickles through her veins. It makes her want to grind up against something, _anything_ that might provide a bit of friction, and a small part of her absolutely loathes this feeling, even as the rest of her revels in it.

She licks her lips, thinking. Or, trying to think.

And then, she decides-- fuck it.

_Do you like the way my clothes smell, Solo?_

Because she wants to know. The omega inside her suddenly _needs_ to know.

She half-expects him to not respond. Why would he?

But he replies immediately.

**yes**

A long pause. And then:

**god, yes**

He wants her, then. He wants her he wants her _she has pleased him she has pleased him she has--_

Rey shoves her fist into her mouth, and the omega inside her groans, so long, and so loud that if she weren’t in a noisy bathroom in a noisier bar, people would hear her. People would _know._ But in spite of herself -- in spite of the fact that this horrible man insulted her and her work less than twelve hours ago -- the thought of Solo, all alone in his hotel room, clutching her clothes to his face and breathing her in, makes her so wet, so fast, she nearly passes out.

One more text. She needs to send him one more text. Just one more.

_Have you done anything with my clothes, Solo?_

_Something dirty_ the omega inside her keens. Begs. _Please god let him be doing something dirty with my things, please let him be marking them all up with his scent and his cum and his--_

**i’m in my room**

**i’ve got your jacket on my pillow, and your pantyhose tied around my wrist**

**i press my nose into the pillow so that when i make myself come**

**i can pretend it’s your cunt squeezing me, not my fist**

Fuck. Oh, _fuck_.

Rey’s hand has found its way past the waistband of her slacks and into her already drenched underwear. The moment her fingertips find her sopping cunt a vivid picture of Solo in his hotel room, naked, his enormous hand fisting his cock while her suit jacket is draped over the top half of his face, immediately comes to mind. Her eyes roll back into her head as she watches him in her mind’s eye, watches him as he works himself with hard, punishing strokes, torturing himself with his hand and her scent, his fist pounding at his flesh as he sucks that luscious lower lip of his into his mouth. Bites into it with his teeth.

_Tell me more_

the omega inside Rey texts him with her free hand. The fingers of Rey’s right hand are working furious circles into her clit, and already the coil of tension in her body feels ready to snap.

**More?**

_yes. please, alpha._

**oh fuck**

**don’t call me that**

**Please**

**not now**

_Tell me more_

_I need you to tell me more_

**Oh god**

**i’ve made myself come three times since I last saw you**

**I can’t help it**

**you need to take your things back because i won’t be able to think about anything else but you**

**and your glorious cunt**

**until you do**

And she’s done for. Rey can hear him, _feel_ him, growl the last few texts against her gland, and she falls apart with no warning, Solo’s name a choked cry on her lips as her cunt clenches, hard, almost painfully, onto nothing but empty air.

It takes a long moment for Rey’s breathing to return to normal, and for her mind to come down from the clouds and return to her body.

When she comes back to herself, she looks around, and realizes, for the first time in about five minutes, that she’s sitting in a heap in a dingy stall of a dirty ladies room in a noisy, shitty bar.

She cringes and does a literal facepalm.

“What a fucking mess you are, Johnson,” she mutters into her hands. “Shit. _Shit._ ”

Furious with herself for succumbing like this, she looks down at her phone. At some point she must have dropped it on the floor.

Solo hasn’t stopped texting her.

**omega where are you**

**oh fuck**

**omega find me**

**in the hotel**

**please**

Despite the fact that Rey just came, hard, on her fingers, his desperate pleas are almost enough to get her going again.

But then, like a flash of lightning, Rey has an idea.

A terrible idea.

A brilliant idea.

If she can’t get this asshole’s professional respect, the very least she can do is drive him insane.

She picks her phone up off the ground and texts him back.

_actually i’ve changed my mind_

_i don’t want my things anymore._

_i want you to keep them_

_and think of me_

_Alpha_

**Johnson--**

Rey shuts off her phone and returns it to her purse before she can read the rest of his text.

She washes her hands carefully at the bathroom sink and smirks at herself in the mirror, feeling better than she has since before this whole mess began.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Millions of thanks once again to [kylorenaissance](https://kylorenaissance.tumblr.com/) for being an incredible beta and talking me off the ledge with this fic time and time again <3

The rest of the conference passes relatively incident-free.

Now that Rey’s talk is over, she can finally relax a little. She attends presentations that interest her, and goes out of her way to network with people from other schools. On the evenings she doesn’t have a dinner or some other conference-related event to attend, Rey hangs out with Finn and Rose in the hotel bar. She and Finn reminisce about old times over nachos and overpriced beers, and Rey finally starts to get to know Rose—who’s a total delight; not that she’s surprised—the way she’s been wanting to do ever since she married her best friend. 

Of course, Rey isn’t able to  _ completely  _ relax.

For reasons that escape her, she’s actually managed to avoid Solo since their last, insane text conversation. She hadn’t really believed she’d pull it off; but, apparently, she has. He hasn’t tried to contact her since she told him to go fuck himself (both figuratively  _ and _ literally). She hasn’t seen him at any official conference events, or anywhere at this hotel. 

She hasn’t even scented him.  

While this is, of course, what she’d hoped would happen, it’s also a little unsettling. Because he’s definitely still around here somewhere. He hasn’t gone back to New York. He’s still listed on panels and apparently showing up to them—and, according to Finn and Rose, he’s still staying in his original room. (They can hear him yelling loudly into his phone late at night, Finn tells her. Rey plans to send them a nice gift, later, for agreeing to switch rooms.) 

Because of this, Rey’s been half-expecting Solo to just... randomly show up at some point, right when she least expects it. At breakfast one morning, maybe. While she’s working out in the hotel gym.

While she’s in the shower. 

When he does inevitably catch up with her, she can’t help but worry he’s going to want to show her, first-hand, exactly what happens when an omega openly defies an alpha who wants to fuck her. She’s been simultaneously dreading it—and wondering what will it will be like when it happens.

(She is  _ definitely  _ not fantasizing about him finding her, catching her unawares. And she is most  _ certainly _ not getting unbearably wet every time she imagines his big, desperate hands all over her body.)

In short, even though everything is going pretty well right now, Rey’s still a little on edge.

More than a little on edge.

 

* * *

 

 

The night before they’re set to go back home, Finn, Rey, and Rose decide to go to a restaurant recommended by the Chicago faculty hosts. It’s pretty upscale, according to Yelp—complete with waiters in suits and white linen tablecloths. Rey puts on the only outfit she brought with her that could be considered even remotely sexy: a form-fitting black sheath dress that hugs her modest curves like a glove, paired with a ridiculous pair of black stilettos she still can’t believe her friend Kaydel talked her into getting last month. 

When the elevator door opens onto the lobby, Rose and Finn are already waiting for her, dressed in a lovely pale pink dress and a dark navy suit, respectively.

Finn looks up at Rey and gives a low whistle.

“You look incredible, Peanut.”

Rey laughs, and rolls her eyes. “Oh, this old thing,” she says, teasing.

The three of them walk to the taxi stand in front of the hotel. It’s a warm evening for late November in Chicago, but it’s not  _ that _ warm. Rey wraps her arms around herself, wishing she’d thought to pack some kind of shawl.

Living in Northern California for so long has made her soft.

As they wait for a cab, Finn asks, too casually: “So. Have you seen Ben Solo recently?”

Rey’s heart speeds up, even as her stomach lurches, at the mention of his name. 

“No,” she says, more curtly than she’d intended. “I haven’t. Why?”

Rose looks up from her phone and turns to Finn. “Ben Solo. Is that that weird guy staying in the room next to us?”

Finn laughs. “That’s him.”

“Ah,” Rose says. “Yeah. He looks terrible, Rey. Although, I guess I don’t know what he  _ normally  _ looks like, so…”

Rey starts fidgeting with the strap of her purse, just for something to do with her hands. She hopes her friends can’t see the flush she knows is already rising on her cheeks.  “Why should I care what he looks like?”

Finn huffs another laugh. “I don’t think you  _ should _ care. But given how you left things with him--”

Rey glares at him. “What do you mean,  _ how I left things with him _ ?” 

She knows she’s being unfair to Finn. She has, after all, told him everything that’s happened with Solo at this conference. (Well.  _ Almost _ everything.) And even though Finn’s a beta, he knows enough about alphas to know Solo’s likely been going to pieces since the last time Rey texted him.

And he knows enough about omegas—and, more to the point, enough about Rey—to know she’s probably not holding up as well as she’s pretending to, either.

Finn holds up his hands, palms facing outward. Defensive. “Look. All I’m saying is, given everything, we thought you’d be, you know—” he breaks off, gestures meaningfully with his hands—“ _ interested _ , or whatever, in knowing that Solo’s been moping around the hotel like someone just cancelled Christmas.” He shakes his head. “He looks like he hasn’t slept in days.” 

Rey nods, but she can’t quite look Finn in the eye when she says, “Noted.”

It isn’t much longer before Rey discovers, for herself, the truth of what Finn is telling her.

 

* * *

 

 

After dinner, Rey ends up returning to the hotel alone.

Finn and Rose don’t fly home until tomorrow afternoon, but Rey’s flight is first thing in the morning. And so after dinner, when Finn and Rose decide to stay out a bit later and get drinks, Rey bids them good night.

She’s exhausted, after all, from this very long week. And she still hasn’t packed for tomorrow.

In fact, she’s so tired, and so preoccupied with everything she still has to do to get ready for her flight that at first, she doesn’t notice the tall, broad-shouldered man in the charcoal grey suit, casually leaning against the elevator bank in the hotel lobby and checking his phone. But it isn’t long before she scents him—strong, masculine, alpha… 

… and very, very familiar.

And then everything Rey had just been thinking about scatters like dust on the wind.

She looks up, and sure enough, there’s Ben Solo staring back at her, eyes very wide. He’s not so much looking at her, she realizes with a start, as drinking her in. His gaze lingers on her bare legs, her curves—all the parts of her body he’d touched and licked and kissed and fucked the other day, when he had her spread out before him on his bed like a feast. 

“Johnson,” he breathes. He sounds dazed. He  _ looks _ dazed; like he’s just been struck hard on the back of the head with a blunt object. 

Rey sees immediately that Rose and Finn had been right: Solo  _ does _ look terrible. His eyes— dark and intense the last time she saw him—are bloodshot now, with dark circles underneath. His skin, already very pale, now has an almost sickly pallor. 

She’s just about to open her mouth to say something to him, though she’s not exactly sure what  _ to _ say, when one of the elevators behind them dings, and its door slides open. Saved by the bell. Several people file out of it, chatting quietly to each other.

Rey recognizes this as her chance to escape.

She nods curtly to Solo, then enters the elevator, hoping he has the good sense not to follow her inside.

He doesn’t. He steps into the elevator immediately after she does, standing so close there’s a long moment where it feels like she can’t breathe.

And then, the elevator door slides closed, leaving them alone together. 

“Can we talk?” he asks. His voice sounds hoarse, rough from disuse. So unlike the clear, commanding voice from when he’d fucked her senseless in his hotel room. The elevator is small, but not so small that he needs to be standing quite this close to her. It feels like more and more oxygen is being sucked out of the little space with every passing second, and is being replaced with Solo’s uniquely potent brand of alpha pheromones. This is bad, this is  _ dangerous _ —but he hasn’t moved on her. He’s just... standing there, only a few inches away, looking down at her with an expression she’s never seen from him before. Like his world will end if she tells him no.

Already she can feel his scent beginning to creep inside and take control. But she refuses to let that happen. She digs deep, and finds the strength to hold her ground.

“About what, Solo?” Her voice is shaking. She tries to ignore it. She looks up at him—he hopes she’s glaring at him, though she can’t be too sure of that right now, not with the way he smells and the intense way he’s looking at her—and folds her arms tightly, defiantly across her chest. “There’s nothing for us to talk about.”

“I disagree.” They still haven’t pushed any buttons on the elevator panel. They’re still stuck here, unmoving, on the first floor of the hotel. Any moment now the elevator doors could slide open again and someone else could join them. Rey both hopes it happens, and hopes it never does. “I think we have a lot to discuss.”

Rey scoffs. “Like what?”

“Like, for starters—we could talk about how you stormed out of my room the other day. After we fucked.”

“I’d rather talk about literally anything else.” She will  _ not _ stand here and let him insult her again. 

But he won’t be deterred. “I hurt your feelings,” he says. “Clearly. But—”

“Right. We’re not doing this,” she says bluntly. She tries to reach around his large body so she can push the button to the eleventh floor without touching him. But he’s just so big, and so close, and she accidentally brushes up against his arm in the process. She shivers in spite of herself. Damn him.  _ Damn him.  _ The elevator finally starts going up, but Rey hardly notices. “I need… I need to pack and get ready for my flight tomorrow. Okay? So if you’ll just get out of my way, I’ll—”

“I’ve been told I’m an asshole,” he interrupts, cutting her off. “Okay? Many, many times.”

At that, Rey pauses, stunned beyond speech.

Is he… trying to do what she thinks he’s trying to do?

“Are you… apologizing?” He can’t possibly be apologizing. Can he? In all the months and years this jerk has been sending her rude emails, never once has he said he was sorry for any of the hurtful things he’s said.

His jaw works and he swallows, eyes averted, looking very much like he’s trying to think of the right thing to say.

Before he can manage it the elevator dings again. The door slides open to reveal the eleventh floor. Rey’s floor. She looks up at him, and dares him to answer her with her eyes.

He says nothing. 

“I don’t have time for this,” she spits, before turning to leave.

Quick as a flash, Solo’s hand is a vise around her upper arm, stopping her. 

“Wait,” he commands. 

And then suddenly, everything changes. The omega inside Rey freezes instinctively. Before she can even process what’s happening, Solo jabs his finger first at the button that closes the elevator door, and then at the button to the fourteenth floor. 

His floor.

“Let me go.” She wants to resist him, she  _ wants _ to, but he smells so fucking good when he takes control like this, and he’s touching her  _ he’s touching her her Alpha is touching her  _ and her protest comes out far breathier than she’d intended. Solo’s hand on her arm is strong and steady and sure; the feel of his palm against her bare flesh, intoxicating.

He ignores her protest. The elevator door slides open again when they reach the fourteenth floor, and he guides her from the elevator effortlessly, his hand on her arm merely there to nudge her along in the direction he wants her to go.

He guides her towards his room, and she follows, at once willingly and  _ not _ willingly, her body betraying her. She drifts forward alongside him, as though his powerful alpha scent were a leash and she an obedient dog. 

But he doesn’t bring her into his room.  _ Thank god for small mercies _ , the small part of Rey’s brain still capable of rational thought thinks fiercely. He stops them just before they get to his door, and he backs her up against the wall of the hallway. His arms bracket her head as he keeps his hips a safe distance away from her body.

“I am an  _ asshole _ , Johnson,” he hisses. As though she somehow missed it the first time he said it. His dark eyes are unfocused as they rove over her body again, his face so close to hers she can almost taste his breath as he speaks. It smells oddly sweet; a strange mixture of musk, and fruit, and raw, unfiltered desire. Breathing him in like this causes a frisson of want to coil hard in her belly, and before she realizes she’s doing it she begins to rub her legs together, just to generate some friction there.

“I know you are,” she says back at him. Again, trying for hard and assertive, and again failing, her words instead coming out on a breathy whisper. She watches, with some satisfaction, how affected Solo is by  _ her  _ scent, and by being in such close proximity to her after nearly a week spent apart. His eyes grow wide, and his nostrils flare, and even though there are still a few inches of space between their lower halves Rey can sense him getting hard inside his trousers, just from this. “Is your being an asshole supposed to be news to me?”

“No,” he says gruffly. “No. You’re incredibly intelligent. And intuitive. Of course you’d have already figured that out.”

Rey blinks up at him, stunned.

_ Did he actually just...  _ compliment _ me? _

Well. That’s a fucking first.

But she won’t be distracted. “Then why do you keep  _ telling _ me that you’re assho—”

“Because,” he says. “ _ Because, _ I want you to know that I  _ realize _ I can be… a bit much.” His voice is rising in pitch, now, making him sound frantic. He looks frantic, too, his eyes wild and his hair practically standing on end. “People have been calling me an asshole—and far worse— for as long as I can remember.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Good,” she says bluntly. “I’m glad people are honest with you.”  

He huffs a strange little laugh. “It’s funny you should say that. Because when  _ I’m _ being honest with people, that’s usually when they call me an asshole.”

“I’d argue they have a right to be mad,” she says. She folds her arms in front of her chest, trying to ignore how ridiculously wet she is already—and trying, desperately, to remember that she has a right to be mad at him, too. “If my own experience is any guide.”

He groans, then. And although Rey knows, intellectually, that his groan is a sound of misery, not pleasure, the effect the sound has on her traitorous body is instantaneous. Before she can stop herself from doing it, she slides her arms around his neck and pulls him towards her. She holds him close, burying her face in his shoulder, turning her head a little so she can breathe him in. 

Solo responds to her touch immediately, whimpering a little before wrapping his own arms around her and pulling her even closer.  _ Goddamnit _ , this feels  _ so good _ , and so  _ right,  _ his strong arms around her body like this, her head resting on his chest, and she hates herself more than a little for wanting this so badly. 

As though he’s able to read her thoughts—as though he can tell just how much she wants his arms around her, his hands on her body—Solo groans again. Even louder this time. This time, they’re standing so close Rey can feel it against her stomach when his cock pulses, hard and insistently, inside his slacks.

“What do I have to do?” he murmurs urgently against her scent gland, his voice rough and grating, like sandpaper on stone.

“What… what do you mean?” She feels his soft, plush lips close gently around the gland, sucking on it a little as his tongue traces invisible circles into the ribbed flesh. It’s nearly her undoing. She tries to pull back from him with the small amount of restraint left to her-- but she remembers, too late, that her back is up against the wall and there’s nowhere for her to go.

He gathers her even closer. She shouldn’t, she  _ knows _ she shouldn’t—but she lets him do it. And he keeps his lips  _ right there, _ right on her gland, when he asks: “What do I have to do to get you to fuck me again?”

He groans again—or maybe Rey’s the one who groans this time; it’s hard to tell. Her knees go weak at the insistent, alpha tone behind his words, and she knows she’d be falling to the floor in a heap right about now if she weren’t still pinned to the wall by his body. 

“What do you want me to say?” she murmurs. He’s nibbling on her gland, now, turning her brain into liquified jelly. All of her rage and all of her fury are in a puddle on the floor, and the only thing that matters in the world is that this alpha never, ever stop touching her like this.  _ Exactly  _ like this. She tilts her hips forward so she can feel him against the apex of her thighs; and she cries out when her body makes contact with his cock, grinding against him before she can stop herself from doing it.

Somehow—she has no idea how—Solo has the presence of mind to pull back from her. He’s breathing hard now,  _ really  _ hard, his nostrils flared as his lungs try and gulp down as much of her scent as they can. His dark, brown eyes are half-crazed, his pupils blown wide with frantic desire.

“I want you to tell me the truth,” he says. He pulls back a little more, and his eyes fall to her hips, still canting obscenely towards his as her body searches, blindly, instinctively, for release. “Tell me the truth, Johnson. What do I need to do for you to want this? For  _ all _ of you to want this, I mean; not just your body. Because I don’t want you to storm out of my room, after. Or to hate yourself—or  _ me _ —after.” He swallows. She watches, transfixed, as his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “If possible, I’d like you to even feel a little... happy, about it.” 

Whatever Rey had expected him to say, it wasn’t this. Because he _must_ be able to scent how badly she wants him to fuck her right now. He _must_ know that he could have her, right now, any which way he wanted her. Truly, the only reason she was able to defy him over text was because he hadn’t been with her. Touching her like this. Breathing the same air. 

And yet here he is, asking her—an  _ omega _ —to put actual, concrete demands on him. He wants her to be honest about what she needs for this to be okay.

It’s like she’s been drunk off her ass for the past half hour and he just handed her a cup of strong black coffee. The effect is largely the same. Her hips hit the wall behind her as she backs away from him. Her arms fall away from his shoulders, and hang limply at her sides.

She shakes her head a little to clear out some more of the cobwebs. She tries to think of what to say. She looks up at him, his dark eyes just as intense as they’d been a few moments ago, but there’s a softness behind the look he’s giving her, now, that Rey can’t begin to understand.

“Stop criticizing my work,” she says bluntly. It’s the first thing that pops into her head, but it feels right. She  _ could  _ ask him to apologize. But then he’d have to lie to her, wouldn’t he? Because he isn’t sorry. He knows what he said hurt her, but instead of taking it back he just said he knows he’s an asshole.

That’s not the same thing as being sorry. At all.

“Stop criticizing your work?” Solo repeats, slowly, like the words are in a foreign language he barely understands. 

“Yeah,” she says. “If you don’t like something I’ve written just...” She trails off, because he’s still standing so close to her and he smells  _ so good _ and the longer she stands here with him, the harder it is to think straight. 

He frowns. “Just, what?”

“Just—just keep it to yourself, okay? If you think there’s something wrong with something I’ve written, just leave it alone. Leave  _ me _ alone.”

If she can get him to never talk down to her again, she thinks she can live with herself if he fucks her brains out tonight. 

She doesn’t have to actually  _ like _ this guy, after all. After she goes home tomorrow, she’ll make certain she never sees him again.

This could work. If he keeps his fucking mouth shut from now on, she thinks this could work.

“But...” He looks troubled. “What if I think my advice would be useful? Or, helpful? I know you’re new to academia, and I’m just—”

As he speaks, Rey leans forward, and slowly, deliberately, drags the tip of her tongue along the side of his neck. She traces the edge of his scent gland, and she watches as the rest of whatever he’d been about to say dies in his throat.

She slides a hand down between their bodies until her palm finds his length, hot and hard and straining for her touch within the confines of his slacks. 

“How badly do you want to fuck me tonight, Solo?” she murmurs against his lips. She starts moving her hand, palming him with quick, deliberate strokes. His cock twitches, and she watches his face as his eyes roll back in his head, and as he bites down so hard on that luscious lower lip of his he nearly draws blood. 

“Anything…” he groans. “I’ll give you  _ anything.  _ Oh, god…” Rey speeds up the movement of her hand, and he swallows thickly. Hiis jaw falling open. “This week, I nearly… Johnson, I nearly lost my fucking mind. Your jacket… your texts...  _ Jesus _ . I stayed away because I knew that’s what you wanted, but,  _ fuck,  _ all I want to do right now—all I can  _ think _ about is—”

_ My jacket _ . 

Rey flushes, realizing, suddenly, that she never did get that back from him.

She clears her throat. “You told me to be honest,” she reminds him. She pulls her hand away from his body, and although it wrenches a desperate sort of whine from his throat she knows it’s the right thing to do. Neither one of them will be happy about it if he comes in his pants out here in the hallway. “So, here’s me being honest: I need you to stop being such a raging asshole to me.” 

He’s panting now, eyes half-lidded and hazy. “Anything,” he says again. “Anything.”

“You’ll stop harassing me over email?” she asks pointedly. But she’s already winding her arms around his neck and pulling him closer, and his hands are sliding around to grip her ass.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “I promise. Whatever you want. I just—I want to make you  _ happy _ , Omega. I just—”

It’s good enough for her. Rey yanks him down by his collar until their faces are level and seals her lips over his. 

And, oh, fuck—it’s good. It’s  _ so _ good. Solo grunts against her mouth, and then his tongue pries her lips apart to plunge inside. She jumps, and he catches her with ease, wrapping her arms and legs around his body so he can carry her right into his room.

The scent inside his room is just as overpowering now as it was the last time she was here. Maybe even more so. If Solo weren’t carrying her, Rey’s knees would surely buckle from the strength of it, from the raw, unfiltered want and desire suffusing everything. 

But he  _ is _ carrying her. He walks Rey backwards to his bed, kissing her like the world is ending. Which, honestly, it might be. Even though their bodies are crushed together—his hands cupping her ass while his strong arms support her weight; her own arms wrapped tightly around his broad shoulders—he’s still nowhere near close enough. Rey wants nothing more in this world than to crawl inside him. 

“Bed,” she whispers against his lips. “Please.”

He complies immediately, wordlessly, laying Rey carefully down on top of the mattress like she’s something precious that might break with rough handling. 

She expects him to tear off her clothes without ceremony and climb on top of her—to come to a full seat inside her and fuck her to within an inch of her life. But he surprises her. Instead of peeling her dress from her body, he simply stands there at the foot of the bed, looking at her. Drinking her in.

He shakes his head, very slowly. His eyes are glassy.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “So beautiful.”

And then, a moment later, he pounces. He yanks her by her ankles right to the end of the bed, making her squeal with surprise, and then tears down her underwear with one large hand.

Rey wriggles around on the bed awkwardly, trying to reach down to her feet so she can take off her ridiculously high heels. But now Solo’s kneeling on the floor, his head between her legs and her hips resting on each of his shoulders—and he shakes his head no.

“Leave them on,” he instructs. All the nervous anticipation and anxious pleading she’d seen and heard from him just moments ago is gone now. Now, he’s all alpha—strong, demanding. In control. “I want you to leave them on.”

His words, his tone, are like molten honey through her veins. Rey squirms beneath him; if she thought she was wet before, that was nothing compared to how wet she is now. She tries to wriggle closer to his face, because his mouth is just  _ so close _ and she  _ needs it _ . 

He lays one large, authoritative palm flat on her stomach to still her movements.

“Solo,” she whines. She can feel each one of his shaky exhalations right against her cunt, warm and enticing. If he waits much longer to taste her she might actually die. The time for teasing is over. She needs…

“Please, Solo.  _ Please _ —”

His lips are on her clit before she can get out the rest of what she’d been about to say, and it’s like an electric current racing down her spine. She  _ keens _ his name, back arched off the bed as he teases her with just the tip of his tongue. He is relentless, dipping down to taste her cunt before drawing his tongue back up her slit again to lick and nip right where she needs him the most.

Without thinking, she reaches down and grabs big fistfulls of his hair, tugging him forward as though she could pull him inside her that way. He moans, loudly, in return, against her sensitive flesh. She can feel the reverberations of it through every muscle and sinew in her body, and before she knows she’s doing it she digs her heels, hard, into his shoulders. 

Too late, she remember she’s still wearing her stilettos. But if Solo minds the discomfort he shows no sign of it. On the contrary; he only moans again, even more loudly this time, his hands clutching at her hips convulsively the harder she digs in. 

She loses entire minutes—hours; days—as he works her body with his mouth. Time has no meaning here, in his room, where everything smells like him, like  _ alpha,  _ as she writhes beneath his touch. But it doesn’t last long. When Solo roughly shoves three large fingers into her sopping cunt she screams, her orgasm a sonic blast that shakes her to pieces. 

There’s a long, silent beat as Rey lies there, stunned, heart racing as she tries to catch her breath. 

And then—

“I’m going to fuck you now,” he tells her. Or, she thinks it’s what he tells her. Her body is still weightless, boneless, floating high above the bed, and his voice comes to her through a fog, from a million miles away. 

She cracks open one eye, and sees him standing by the side of the bed, tall and imposing above her, his hair an absolute wreck from her roaming hands. His own large, graceful hands are at the buckle of his belt, fumbling with it for just a few seconds before he’s got the thing undone.

He tosses the leather strip to the floor, and then toes off his shoes. “You’re  _ mine _ , Omega.”

She bites her lip.

She is not his. 

She’s  _ not. _

But tonight—right now—she belongs to no one but him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An administrative note -- I won't be able to update this fic as scheduled next Thursday. I'm contributing a piece to [the Reylo Charity Anthology](https://reylocharityanthology.tumblr.com/), an amazing collaboration between over a hundred Reylo writers and artists that's raising money for the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Save the Children. And I need to work on that piece. ;) But worry not -- Stay Hungry will be back again in two weeks time.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience with this update, everyone! <3

_Wed 1/15/2018 10:57 PM_

_From: Amilyn C. Holdo (_ [ _holdo.ami@columbia.edu_ ](mailto:holdo.ami@columbia.edu) _)_

 _To: Rey Johnson (_ [ _johnson.rey@ucd.edu_ ](mailto:johnson.rey@ucd.edu) _)_

_Subject: NAHS Spring Conference_

 

_Dear Rey,_

_I hope this email finds you well._

_I’m writing to let you know your paper has been accepted into the North American Historian Society conference Columbia is hosting this spring. The conference organizers will be sending along specifics about scheduling, airfare, and lodging in another few weeks, but I wanted to congratulate you personally. Your paper looks interesting and quite novel, and I very much look forward to seeing your presentation in March._

_All best,_

_\- ach_

* * *

 

_Thurs 1/16/2018, 8:02 AM_

_From: Rey Johnson (_ [ _johnson.rey@ucd.edu_ ](mailto:johnson.rey@ucd.edu) _)_

 _To: Amilyn C. Holdo (_ [ _holdo.ami@columbia.edu_ ](mailto:holdo.ami@columbia.edu) _)_

_Re: NAHS Spring Conference_

 

_Dear Amilyn,_

_Thank you so much for letting me know. I’m really excited about this opportunity, and look forward to the additional information from the organizers when they send it out._

_Sincerely,_

_Rey Johnson_

* * *

 

Rey reads through her short response to Holdo three times before hitting send with shaking hands. Afterwards, Rey puts her phone down on her nightstand, picks up her pillow, and squeals into it for a solid minute before she’s calm enough to text Finn with the news.

_ <my paper was accepted at NAHS!!!!!!!> _

Finn doesn’t get back to her right away. Rey vaguely remembers that Fordham’s history department has a multi-departmental retreat this week. He’s likely stuck in terrible meetings right now. Rey pulls on her robe, makes her way into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and waits.

By the time she’s on her second cup, Finn’s written her back.

**peanut!**

**that’s awesome**

**i’m so happy for you**

**NAHS is**

**wow**

**seriously, congrats**

Of course, Holdo _had_ specifically invited her to submit something for this conference back in November. So Rey had a pretty good feeling about her chances. Still, though. This paper is something she eventually wants to include in her tenure portfolio. The fact that it’s been accepted at a conference as prestigious as NAHS is a great sign.

_ <thank you Finn> _

_ <i had a good feeling about this> _

_ <but still> _

_ <it's nice to get the validation> _

_ <so excited> _

**I bet**

**You deserve it**

_ <What would I do without your support?> _

**It’s mutual, peanut**

**Ok so look**

**I’m stuck at this retreat right now**

**We’re being forced to listen to a presentation on “backwards design” and how to implement it in our classes**

**(utter bullshit btw)**

**So I gotta go now but**

**Before i do**

**And now that you’ll definitely be in New York in March**

**did you still want me and Rose to set you up with**

Finn’s texts stop abruptly after that. Rey starts chewing on her thumbnail, anxiously waiting for him to finish the rest of his thought. Though she already knows what the rest of his question was going to say.

As the weeks tick by, Rey’s increasingly certain her heat will start right before this conference. And she’s not going to be able to go through it alone.

When a few more minutes pass and Finn still doesn’t text back Rey wonders if maybe he doesn’t feel comfortable texting about this while he’s surrounded by a bunch of his colleagues. Fair enough, really. So when she writes him back she keeps it vague.

_ <Yeah that would be great if you could help out with my pre-conference situation> _

_ <when i’m in New York> _

_ <because I’ll definitely still need help> _

_ <if that’s what you’re getting at> _

**Sorry, yeah.**

**Backwards design is taking up all my brain space atm**

**Ha**

**Anyway**

**I’m happy to help**

**Here’s a link to Poe’s info**

**and the two of you can take it from there**

Even though sending her Poe’s info is the logical next step, now that Finn’s _actually_ doing this Rey can’t help but be a little embarrassed. Her best friend is coordinating her next heat hook-up. There’s nothing that’s not weird about it.

Still, though. Even though Rey’d initially been reluctant to accept Finn’s offer to do this for her, she has to admit that she’s grateful she won’t have to deal with finding someone herself, in an unfamiliar city.

It’ll be one less thing she has to worry about.

The whole situation -- going into heat less than a week before one of the most important presentations she’s ever given -- is going to be stressful enough as it is.

_ <thanks again> _

_ <good luck surviving your retreat> _

**Thanks**

**I’m gonna need it**

* * *

 

Rey clicks on the link Finn sent her once she has a little downtime between classes that afternoon. She closes the door to her office and sits at her desk, taking a bite of the sandwich she grabbed from the student union. It’s an incredibly not-special turkey sandwich on boring white bread. Usually, she likes to grab something at one of the ethnic restaurants a little further from her building--but she has way too much to do today to justify taking that much time getting lunch.

The link brings her to Poe Dameron’s profile page at his midtown Manhattan law firm. Rey’s eyes widen. Poe is… actually kind of hot. In a conventional, alpha-y sort of way. He’s got a good face and even better hair, and he absolutely rocks the suit he’s wearing in the picture.

Of course, she has a feeling that Poe probably _knows_ he’s attractive. Most alphas do. But it doesn’t really matter if he’s conceited or not. At least, not for her purposes. All he needs to be is not a total raging asshole, discrete -- and willing to fuck her brains out for the three days she’ll be at the complete mercy of her heat hormones.

Finn promised her he’ll be reliable on all three scores. While Rey definitely plans to do some of her own due diligence on the guy before officially agreeing to hook up with him, for now, Finn’s reference is good enough for her.

Rey puts her phone back in her bag and goes back to her sandwich. She’s got a lot of papers to grade this afternoon, and her next class starts in forty-five minutes.

(She absolutely does _not_ spend most of the rest of her lunch break thinking about Ben Solo and how different he is from this Poe guy. Because she hates Ben Solo. And because she definitely has _not_ thought about him, not even once, since the Chicago conference. Because thinking about a guy she hates as much as she hates Ben Solo would be ridiculous.)

* * *

 

_Wed 2/02/2018 4:57 PM_

_From: Geno J. Namit (namit.geno@columbia.edu)_

_To: Rey Johnson (_ [ _johnson.rey@ucd.edu_ ](mailto:johnson.rey@ucd.edu) _)_

_Bcc: namit.geno@columbia.edu_

_Subject: NAHS Spring Conference_

 

_Dear Colleagues,_

_Attached please find the current schedule for the upcoming NAHS Spring Conference, as well as a list of nearby hotels that will be offering blocks of rooms at a reduced conference rate._

_Should you have any questions about either the conference, your travel arrangements, or Upper Manhattan, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. I look forward to seeing you all in a little over four weeks._

_Sincerely,_

_Geno J. Namit_

_(attachment.doc)_

* * *

 

_Wed 2/02/2018 5:37 PM_

_From: Rey Johnson (_ [ _johnson.rey@ucd.edu_ ](mailto:johnson.rey@ucd.edu) _)_

_To: Geno Namit (namit.geno@columbia.edu)_

_re: NAHS Spring Conference_

 

_Dear Geno,_

_Thank you for sending out the conference schedule._

_I have a question about how my presentation is listed. I’m listed as presenting with another panelist after lunch on the second day. This surprises me, as I’d applied to present by myself at a concurrent session, and not with a group. Has a mistake been made? If not, what is my co-presenter’s name? (That information isn’t included anywhere I can find it.)_

_Thanks very much in advance._

_Rey Johnson_

* * *

 

_Thurs 2/03/2018 6:57 AM_

_From: Geno Namit (namit.geno@columbia.edu)_

_To: Rey Johnson (_ [ _johnson.rey@ucd.edu_ ](mailto:johnson.rey@ucd.edu) _)_

_re:re: NAHS Spring Conference_

 

_Dear Rey,_

_This year, the conference organizers wanted to try something a little different. We’ve combined some of the stronger proposals we received from junior scholars with proposals we received from more senior faculty at other institutions. Our goal is to give the conference a more integrated, interdisciplinary feel. We hope it will prove a valuable experience both for presenters and discussants alike, and will lead to lively conversations._

_The schedule should not have gone out, however, without the name of your co-presenter. Sorry about the clerical mistake. You will be presenting with Benjamin C. Solo from New York University. His contact information is attached to this email._

_Let me know if you have any additional questions. I look forward to meeting you in March._

_Sincerely,_

_Geno Namit_

_(attachment.doc)_

* * *

 

Rey reads through Geno’s email multiple times, her stomach sinking a little more, and her sense of dread rising, every time she gets to the words _Benjamin C. Solo_

“No,” she mutters under her breath. She clenches her hands into fists. “No _fucking_ way.”

She had already kind of figured Solo would to be at this conference, given its location. All the same, she’d hoped to avoid him entirely while she was there. She hadn’t quite figured out how she was going to manage that, but she still had time. Surely something would have come to her between now and then.

Now though…

 _Now_ , not only will she _not_ be able to avoid Solo at this conference, she won’t be able to avoid him in the weeks leading up to it, either. They’ll have to have Skype calls to discuss and coordinate their presentations, and to make certain their talks will fit in the time allotted.

If she weren’t so junior, she could probably push back and ask Columbia to switch her. But she _is_ very junior, and she knows she’s damn lucky to be going to this conference in the first place.

Solo could possibly do it. He’s got a hell of a lot more clout than she does. But what if he doesn’t want them to be split up? The last time they were together he’d made it pretty clear he wasn’t as opposed to them interacting in the future as she was. Just the opposite, in fact. (Of course, it was hard to understand exactly what he was saying with his face between her legs; but the gist of what it was crystal clear.)

What if--

Oh, shit.

What if Solo even _asked_ the conference to put them together?

Rey buries her head in her hands and groans.

This is the worst possible thing that could have happened right now.

What is she going to do?

* * *

 

Fortunately, she doesn’t need to wait long to find out. By the time she finishes teaching her afternoon class there’s already a text from Solo waiting for her.

**I had nothing to do with this.**

Rey realizes, with a jolt, that this is actually the first time she’s had any sort of contact with Solo since the Chicago conference.

Which is not at all what she’d expected when she’d asked him to stop criticizing her work.

He had, of course, promised to honor her request. But she’d put no stock in that promise. He’d _had_ to promise to leave her alone if he wanted to fuck her that night. Solo had been halfway to fully knotted by the time he finally came to a full seat inside her, and completely out of his mind with lust. Rey has no doubt that by that point, he’d have promised her just about anything.

She’d fully expected the criticism would resume once they were no longer around each other and back into their regular routines.

But it hadn’t resumed. Not only that, he hasn’t even tried to contact her. Not even once. Not until now. And he’s only doing it now because he basically has to.

When do alphas _ever_ back off when an omega asks to be left alone? An omega they’ve fucked, no less--and an omega they almost certainly want to fuck again?

Rey bites her lip, and stares at her phone, trying to think of the best way to respond to him. More texts appear before she makes up her mind.

**This is such a stupid idea.**

**No one who submitted to this conference asked to present on a panel.**

**I have no idea why they’re lumping people together like this.**

Huh.

Well, that’s a first. Something she and Solo can agree on.

_ <yeah, me either> _

_ <and I agree> _

_ <it’s a bad idea> _

**I’ll talk to this Geno Namit person and insist we be given individual slots.**

**I know you want nothing to do with me.**

**And I don’t want you to be made to feel uncomfortable.**

**Not ever. But certainly not by me, and not at something like this, during this phase of your career.**

**Besides. I present alone anyway. Always.**

Rey can’t help but laugh a little at that last sentence. Why does the fact that Solo always presents by himself not surprise her? In fact, now that the shock of Geno’s email has worn off a little, she can’t even begin to imagine Solo sharing a podium with someone. With _anyone. Ever._

He’d literally knock anyone else off the podium.

As for the rest of Solo’s texts…

She bites her lip, and ignores the strange little flip her stomach does when she realizes he’s doing this, at least in part, out of what appears to be sincere concern for her. And her feelings.

_ <Thank you for taking the lead> _

_ <I don’t feel like i can push back on this> _

**Of course.**

**I’m fine with doing it.**

**Those clowns at Columbia are used to getting pushback from me anyway.**

**:)**

Wait a minute. Did Solo seriously just text her a... smile emoji?

Grinning in spite of herself, she writes:

_ <Why doesn’t that surprise me all?> _

**Which part?**

_ <The part where you said Columbia is used to nonsense from you> _

**Because you’re not stupid.**

**Just the opposite, in fact.**

Rey’s afternoon class starts in another thirty minutes, so she doesn’t text Solo again that afternoon.

But she can’t stop thinking about his messages for the rest of the day.

* * *

 

Rey is woken from a deep sleep in the middle of the night by the sound of her phone buzzing loudly on her bedside table.

She rolls over, and blinks at her phone display.

It’s another text from Solo.

**I got it taken care of.**

Rey blinks at the text for a few long moments, still half-asleep and not entirely certain what she’s reading.

_ <What?> _

**Oh. Sorry.**

**The Columbia thing. With the presentations.**

**I took care of it.**

**You’ll be presenting in the morning of the second day. I’ll be presenting that afternoon. Geno will send us updated conference schedules later today.**

**You should know, though--after what I did, I may never be invited to another conference at Columbia.**

**;)**

It’s four-fifteen in the morning. Rey just woke up, and she doesn’t have her contacts in yet. But even half-asleep and half-blind, Rey can still tell that Solo’s just texted her another smile emoji.

Which is… totally weird. And out-of-character. Kind of insane, actually. Something is clearly the matter with him.

_ <What did you do to get yourself on a potential future blacklist?> _

**I was not what one might call “polite” when I requested a different slot.**

**Most people would also probably not call what I did “requesting.”**

_ <What did you do?> _

_ <Did you call them up and shout at them?> _

**No.**

_ <No?> _

**Well.**

**Maybe.**

_ <Maybe?> _

**All right, yes. I called. I shouted.**

**I might have told them I wouldn’t come at all if they didn’t do what I wanted.**

**Or, more specifically--what you wanted.**

What… what _she_ wanted?

Rey’s pauses for a long moment, her phone in her hands, as she tries to think of what to say in response to all this.

More texts from him arrive before she can decide.

**Oh, shit.**

**It’s the middle of the night there, isn’t it.**

**I always forget the time change.**

**Fuck.**

**I’ll leave you alone now.**

**Goodnight, Rey.**

It isn’t until much later that day-- when she’s at a faculty meeting that’s gone on for far too long, and she’s bored to tears-- that Rey realizes this is the first time Solo’s ever called her by her first name.

* * *

 

Rey does a final walk-through of her apartment, just to make certain she hasn’t forgotten anything before she leaves for the airport.

She’s beginning to suspect she should have left for New York yesterday. Possibly even the day before yesterday. Her dreams last night were strange, and intense, full of faceless alphas pawing at her breasts and her cunt through her clothing. She woke up this morning with her hand in her sleeping pants and her underwear drenched, her clit throbbing beneath her fingertips.

Normally, her sleep is deep and dreamless. Unless, of course, she’s either on the cusp of starting her heat, or experiencing heat-like symptoms.

She packed last night, and rechecked her suitcase three times before going to bed. So, that’s good. She texted the cat sitter this morning to confirm he’s still planning to come and feed George twice every day. Her secretary knows she’ll be in New York for the next week and a half, and won’t be able to respond to students with midterms questions until next Tuesday.

All the same, Rey’s nervous. This is one of the more… _complicated_ trips she’s taken in a while. Possibly ever. And if any one little thing goes awry-- if, for example, she goes into full-blown heat on her flight this morning, rather than forty-eight hours from now like she thought would happen when she planned this-- she’s fucked.

In more way than one.

Before calling for an Uber Rey goes into her bathroom and carefully packs the medications she’ll need for this trip: her trusty bottle of ibuprofen, for when the cramps set in (they haven’t yet, thank god) but before her heat begins in earnest; and her suppressants, for today, tomorrow, and then for after her heat is finally over.

She throws her toothpaste and toothbrush, and then some pads for the flight, in her tote bag, which she then packs carefully inside her suitcase. She’s already beginning to feel too hot--one of her earliest, most reliable signs of an impending heat. A drop of sweat rolls down the back of her neck and beneath her shirt. The sensation of it sliding down her body is enough, all on its own, to make her shudder.

It’s good she’s going to this conference, Rey reminds herself. It’s very good. She’ll be able to network with some incredible people. Amilyn Holdo and her colleagues at Columbia, in particular, are good people for her to know.

Still, though. The timing of this thing couldn’t be worse. What if Poe Dameron flakes on her? Or turns out to be an ass? Finn guaranteed her she has nothing to worry about, and when she spoke with Poe last week he was incredibly attentive, and promised her he was totally on board for her heat.

But what if something goes wrong anyway?

Well, at this point, there’s nothing to be done for it. She’s flying in a couple of hours, and she’ll just have to trust that she’ll be able to keep it together on the flight out (maybe she’ll be able to hide out in the airplane lavatory for a while if she really needs to come)-- and that she’ll back to her normal self again in time for the conference.

She locks the door to her apartment, pulling her roller bag behind her.

(As she does so, she most decidedly does _not_ think about Ben Solo--or about how perfect his large hands felt on her body last November as he fucked her, hard, into the mattress.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The only thing I know less about than history academia is the logistics of getting to, and from, and around JFK. ;)

The plane lands at JFK not a minute too soon.

Rey clings to the backpack she’s holding on her lap like a shield, bracing herself against the cramps that wrack her body with every lurch of the taxiing aircraft.

As the plane finally comes to a stop in front of the gate she whips her head around in all directions, to see whether anyone else is... _reacting_ to what she knows must be her rapidly changing scent. To her relief, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s noticed. Not yet, anyway. People are yawning and stretching like this is any other landing, reaching under their seats and in overhead bins for their purses and backpacks and briefcases.

But if Rey’s right—and she usually is right about these things; she’s nothing if not in touch with her own body—she doesn’t have much longer at all before things get really, really bad. Maybe another couple of hours. At most.

Fortunately, she’s sitting near the front of the plane. Once passengers are finally allowed to get off it’s only a few more minutes before she’s able to stand up. She reaches overhead, and pulls down her roller bag suitcase from the overhead bin with shaking hands. Her upper arm just barely brushes up against her chest in the process, inadvertently rubbing against her nipples in the process. The effect on her body is instantaneous and staggering: her nipples stiffen to hard, painful peaks, and her cunt clenches, reflexively, around nothing at all.

She closes her eyes, and bites into her bottom lip so hard she tastes blood.

She needs to get out of here. _Fast._ She needs to get into a cab (thank _god_ only betas are allowed to drive cabs in this city), and get in touch with Poe as quickly as humanly possible.

The people in front of her slowly file out of the airplane, and she follows behind them, trying desperately to keep her rising panic at bay.

 

* * *

 

Rey only makes it as far as the nearest ladies’ room before her impending heat gets the better of her.

She roughly elbows her way past a large group of women loitering in front of the wall of sinks, and locks herself into an empty stall as far from the bathroom entrance as she can get. She sits down and, long past the point of shame, tears down her already-drenched underwear with one shaking hand.

Every part of her body is suddenly aching with need, and she is desperate for something, anything, to stop the burning. She presses two fingertips, hard, against her clit, and rocks once, twice, against her hand.

Her orgasm is instantaneous and earth-shattering, whiting out her vision completely as her jaw her drops open in a silent scream. She shoves three fingers of her free hand up inside herself, just so her cunt has something to clench down around as her entire body spasms. But it’s not enough. Her body is crying out, desperate for something thicker, something _better_ , to fill her up, desperate for a knot to stretch her so completely every molecule in her body feels fit to bursting.

 _More_ , her body demands. _Now._

Rey starts to panic, and allows a quiet groan to escape her before she can stop herself, because what is she going to _do_? Everything is both too much and not enough all at once, and it feels like her skin is on fire. She slides her hands up and down her arms, desperate for touch. The feel of her own fingertips on her heated skin is so overwhelming she nearly comes a second time just from this.

 _What am I going to_ do?

A comforting, yet oddly terrifying, and very familiar warmth is starting to trickle its way through her bloodstream. Her panic rises in her throat, threatens to overwhelm her. She is all alone, locked inside a bathroom stall at the JFK airport. Her heat still hasn’t started in earnest yet, so she shouldn’t smell too strongly to any alphas who might happen to be nearby. But she’s definitely hurtling towards it at a breakneck pace at this point, every second that ticks by another second closer to the inevitable madness.

Poe isn’t expecting her to get in touch until tomorrow night. But there is absolutely no way she’ll make it that long. What if she tries to reach him now, but he’s not around? The idea that she might have to go through the first night of this by herself is enough to make her groan again. Before she realizes it’s happening her hand finds its way between her legs once more, fingers working over the little nub there, because she needs to be touched, she _needs_ it. Her head falls back, hard, against the wall, with a loud _thwack_ that would probably hurt if she weren’t already halfway out of her mind.

A moment later, her phone buzzes loudly in her purse. Rey practically leaps off the seat in her rush to dig it out and see who it’s from.

 _Please be from Poe, please please be from Poe_ —

It’s not from Poe.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Thurs 3/07/2018 7:23 PM_

**_From_ ** _: Benjamin C. Solo (_ [ _solo.benjamin@nyu.edu_ ](mailto:solo.benjamin@nyu.edu) _)_

 **_To:_ ** _Rey Johnson (_ [ _johnson.rey@ucd.edu_ ](mailto:johnson.rey@ucd.edu) _)_

 **_Subject_ ** _: (none)_

_Dear Rey,_

_I’ve been meaning to write you for some time._

_The thing is_ —

_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_

Rey doesn’t get any farther than the second line of Solo’s email before an image of him, hovering over her, naked, and fucking her into the mattress—the way he’d done in Chicago— rises, unbidden, in her mind. He’d been relentless with her, making her come again, and again, as he drove into her, his hands on her body a revelation, his mouth on her cunt like nothing she’d ever experienced before in her life.

She imagines what it would be like to have him inside her, right now, as she teeters on the very edge of her heat, his knot so big and so thick inside her it pins her right to the bed. She remembers vividly how it had felt to be with him like that, and she has to clap her hand over her mouth so that the groan threatening to escape her won’t slip out and let _everyone_ in this airport know exactly what’s happening to her right now.

This is... bad. This is very, very bad. Her body is listing slowly, inexorably, towards the heat on the cusp of swallowing her whole. She can feel it inside her, grabbing at her ankles and dragging her down, down, down.

She knows, with a certainty, that she is almost out of time.

She grapples at her phone with shaking hands, and scrolls through her contacts for Poe’s number.

**Rey?**

Solo’s one-word text appears on her screen before she can find the other alpha’s contact info. She groans, loudly, the image of him holding his delicate phone as he texts her-- with those enormous, talented hands--almost enough, all on its own, to make her come again right on the spot.

**Did you get my email?**

**I just sent you an email.**

< _solo > _

_ <now isn’t a good time> _

**Okay. I understand.**

**I still want to talk about it though.**

**Maybe over dinner?**

**When you’re out here next week, I mean.**

Rey doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t want to talk about _anything_ . What she _wants_ is for something, anything, to put out the fire that’s about to burn her alive. She needs—

She needs to find Poe’s number, and—

**Rey, please.**

She’s wound so tight, she’s _so_ close to the edge, that those two little, pleading words from Solo shove her forcefully off of it, and she comes so hard her mind goes blank and her vision whites out.

Her phone drops from her hand and clatters to the floor.

With an agonizing slowness, she comes back to herself.

More words from Solo:

— **anything you need. Anything at all, I just** —

And then suddenly, an idea clicks into place.

It’s a terrible idea.

But at this point, her mind is no longer really her own.

She bends down. Picks up her phone, and begins to send him a message.

< _solo > _

_ <i need your help> _

_ <pretty badly> _

_ <and like> _

_ <right now> _

His response is immediate.

**Rey.**

**What is it? What do you need?**

**What’s wrong?**

He may only be texting her, but his concern for her comes through loud and clear. She pictures him sitting in a swanky New York City apartment, his posture ramrod straight, his broad shoulders hunched over with worry as he sits there, texting her. He’s an asshole but he’s _worried_ about her and wants to help her and—

_And he would take such good care of you during your heat, Omega._

The words fly from Rey’s fingers before she can stop them.

< _i made a mistake > _

_ <i miscalculated something very important and> _

_ <I think i’m trouble> _

_ <i don’t know what im going to do> _

**What did you miscalculate?**

**What are you talking about?**

**Rey** —

< _my heat > _

**WHAT**

**What are you talking about?**

**Your heat?**

**What about your heat?**

< _yes > _

_ <my heat> _

_ <im here> _

_ <at JFK> _

**You’re at JFK?**

< _yeah > _

**Right now????**

_ <yes> _

**And you miscalculated your heat?**

**In what way exactly?**

**Rey**

**What are you telling me**

< _im at JFK > _

_ <i came out a week early because i thought my heat would start in a few days and i could> _

_ <get it over with another alpha before> _

_ <the conference but> _

Rey stops texting abruptly, and winces, gritting her teeth, as a particularly sharp cramp grips her so hard it feels like her insides are being ripped in two. She folds her arms tightly across her midsection, and leans forward, rocking back and forth a little on her seat as she waits for the pain to subside.

When she’s finally able to open her eyes again she has about eighteen thousand new texts from Solo.

**Another alpha?**

**Rey**

**What is going on?**

**Who did you plan to have your heat with?**

**Do I know him? Or, her?**

**Are you all right? Are you safe?**

**Are you having your heat at JF fucking K right NOW?**

**Rey, please. I’m losing my FUCKING mind**

**Why aren’t you texting me back?**

**What is HAPPENING**

< _sorry, sorry > _

_ <had a really bad cramp> _

_ <couldn’t text for a minute there> _

**Oh my god. You’re alive.**

**Are you all right?**

**Is there an alpha I need to fucking murder right this fucking second?**

_ <no> _

_ <i mean, yes> _

_ <yes, i’m all right> _

_ <and no, there’s no one you have to kill> _

**Good.**

**I mean. That’s good.**

_ <right. Look> _

_ <solo?> _

_ <i can’t believe i’m doing this> _

_ <i wasn’t going to do this but> _

_ <i really need your help> _

_ <i know you would take> _

_ <such good care of me and> _

_ <please, Alpha> _

There’s a long pause before Solo texts her back.

**Rey**

**What are you saying?**

**What are you…**

**Are you asking me to see you through your heat?**

Rey closes her eyes. This is a terrible terrible _terrible_ idea, and she’s going to have to somehow tell Finn to tell Poe it’s not going to work out, and —

< _would that be ok? > _

_ <i mean i’m sure you’re busy right now> _

_ <which is fine> _

_ <i have a backup plan if> _

**NO.**

Rey swallows thickly.

_ <no, what?> _

_ <no, that wouldn’t be ok?> _

_ <or…> _

**No backup plans**

**Under no circumstances will you be**

**Utilizing a “backup plan.”**

**Over my dead body will there be a backup plan, Omega.**

**And no, I am not busy**

**Not too busy for this**

**For you**

Rey closes her eyes, and lets out a quiet, grateful sob.

_< when can you get here?>_

**I can be at JFK in thirty minutes.**

**Meet me at baggage claim for domestic arrivals at exactly 8:30.**

**In the meantime, lock yourself in a bathroom stall.**

**Because if another alpha gets to you first**

**I will kill him.**

 

* * *

 

 

Rey isn’t entirely certain how she manages to drag herself out of the ladies’ room where she’d been hiding and down to baggage claim. But she does, somehow. To her great relief, she seems to attract only minimal attention to herself in the process. A few alphas’ heads definitely turn in her direction as she hurries down the B Concourse—but despite the fact that her cramps are coming fast and furious by this point, it feels like her heat is still another solid hour or two away from fully arriving.

Which means her scent, while changing, probably isn’t giving her away too badly just yet.

She’s lucky, in that way.

When she finally manages to get to baggage claim Rey finds a metal-backed chair in a corner that’s tucked as far away from the enormous luggage carousels as possible. She sits down, trying to fold her body in on herself as much as she can. Solo seemed very familiar with this airport and its different baggage claims, and was insistent she meet him in this one. It is, apparently, the one that’s closest to the hourly parking garage.

( _I’m going to drive there,_ he’d explained. _In my car. I’m going to meet you in baggage claim, gather you up in my arms, and then rush you out of the airport before anyone else has a chance to smell you. And then, Omega, once I’ve got you in my car, I’m going to make you come. I’m going to push up your skirt, shove your underwear to the side, and make you come so hard, and so many times, you forget your name._ Rey had groaned at his words, and then she came again, right then and there, before she’d even had a chance to text him back. _)_  

Rey nervously watches the people rushing around gathering their suitcases, hoping that Solo won’t be late. He’d told her thirty minutes, but how is that even possible? It’s been a while since she’s been to New York, and even longer since she’s been at JFK. But this airport is a fucking zoo, to say nothing of the city itself. Traffic in and out of this place can’t possibly allow him to get here as quickly as he’d said.

But then, the air around her shifts. And everything changes.

She looks up, and—

It’s him.

She has no idea how he got here so quickly. But he did, somehow.

He came for her.

“Omega,” he says. His voice is low and urgent, and his eyes are wide, wild, as they take in her disheveled appearance. He crouches down in front of her until their faces are level, and he leans forward, breathing her in. “Oh, fuck. You’re close.” He pulls back, his nostrils flared and his pupils blown wide. “Too close. I need to get you out of here. Immediately.”

“Yes, Alpha,” she whimpers. She leans forward, and traces the edge of his scent gland with the tip of her tongue. He groans as she tastes him, drinks him in, so loudly that people around them almost certainly heard it. But he doesn’t seem to care. His hands close like vises around her upper arms, and he lifts her bodily from the chair.  

“Come with me,” he orders. His voice is even rougher than it was before, like sandpaper on stone. She doesn’t dare look down at the front of his pants, because she’s so far gone right now—and she suspects he is, too—and she has no idea what she’ll do to him if she looks down at his pants right now and he’s hard.

Either way, before she has a chance to even respond to his command he’s tucking her protectively under one arm, and marching her out of the baggage claim area with certain, purposeful strides. The feel of his arm—authoritative, insistent, and strong—around her body is enough, all on its own, to make her instinctively obey him.

 _Do whatever he says_ , the Omega inside her instructs. _He is strong, and powerful. He wants you. He will take such good care of you_.

She doesn’t have it in her anymore to fight it.

 

* * *

 

 

Solo’s car is a black Lexus, with dark leather interior and a passenger’s-side seat that’s already reclined all the way back when he eases her into it. His scent is so thick in this car, so overwhelming and powerful, that it’s all Rey can do not to tear off her clothes right this second and pounce on him.

But he’s giving her a stern, reproachful look, and she knows her alpha wants her to stay put.

“I told you I was going to fuck you in this car,” he tells her, idly. He reaches out with one hand and slowly, slowly, unbuttons her jeans. Pulls down the zipper. He shoves her underwear to one side, and then suddenly his finger is just inches away from where she’s so desperate for it to be. She squirms in her seat, gyrating her hips a little so she can feel his thick fingertips against her overly sensitized flesh.

He places the pad of his thumb against her clit and presses gently, and she jumps in her seat, crying out and scrabbling at his wrist to try and pull him closer.

“Please, Alpha,” she breathes. Solo doesn’t move his hand; he just keeps it _right there_ . She’s panting, now, her slick running down her thighs, and some dim, distant part of her realizes that she’s begging. But she’s far too far gone to care, and right now she has no use at all for pride. “ _Please._ Please fuck me. I’ll do anything. I’ll— _”_

He takes his hand away abruptly, and the unexpected loss of physical contact chokes the wind out of her. She wriggles and writhes towards him on the seat again, feeling her sanity start to unspool a little bit more with every passing second. For his part, he simply watches her, apparently unmoved by the way she’s panting and groaning for him.

With one cocked eyebrow, Solo leans forward and gently, gently kisses the top of her mound, and briefly swirls his tongue less than an inch from where she desperately needs him to be. She cries out again, and is so close to the edge this barest brush of his lips to her flesh is almost enough to shove her off into the abyss. But he moves away before she can get there.

“And I _will_ fuck you Omega,” he continues, his words full of promise. “I’ll give you everything you need.” His eyes darken with something Rey doesn’t recognize. Her breath hitches with anticipation. “But first, I need you to do something for _me_.”

She glances down and—yes; sure enough, he’s hard as a rock inside his jeans, his cock tenting the denim so dramatically it almost looks painful.

She swallows. “I could… I could suck you off, if you want. Or use my hand? Whatever you need from me, Alpha. I can do it.”

She reaches for his belt buckle with shaking hands. He makes a choked noise in the back of his throat and stops her, covering both of her hands with one of his, stilling her movements.

“No,” he says, very quickly. “I mean, yes. Yes, I want you to get me off with your mouth. And your hands. And you _will_ , Omega. You will.” He licks his lips, and Rey’s eyes are drawn irresistibly to his tongue. She watches, mesmerized, as it darts out of his mouth and then back in again. She wants that tongue between her thighs. She wants his knot so deep inside her he’ll never get it out again. She wants him to make her fucking _his_.

“Then what’s the problem?” she asks, her voice a low whisper.

“I need you do so something _else_ , first.”

Without taking his eyes off her, he grabs her purse and digs around inside it until he finds her phone. Slowly, slowly, he pulls it out and hands it to her.

“Text whoever it was you were planning to let fuck you this week,” he tells her, bluntly. “Call it off. Right now. Or I won’t give you what you need.”

Her eyes go wide. She swallows. “You… you want me to—”

“You heard me perfectly well, Omega.” He gives her back her phone, and grabs both sides of her opened jeans with his hands. He slides them, and her drenched underwear, over her hips, and begins inching them, with an intense and aching precision, down her legs. He eyes her slit with a hungry look that belies his pretense at both patience and control—but he doesn’t touch her. “Let him know, right now, that you won’t be his to fuck this week. Once you’ve done it, I will fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk for days.”

He moves his hands meaningfully, and then rests the pads of his thumbs so close to her clit her eyes start to cross.

He knows exactly what he’s doing to her. And she’s helpless to resist.

With shaking hands, Rey picks up her phone from where he’d dropped it on her seat. She tries desperately to ignore the press of his hands to her heated flesh as she scrolls through her contacts for Poe’s number.

“Good,” he tells her, approvingly. He nods. “That’s a good girl.” He draws one fingertip through the slick pooling along her slit, and begins rubbing lazy circles just beneath her entrance. Her eyes roll back in her head, and it feels like she’s going to die.

“Solo,” she whimpers. Her phone falls from her hands. “ _Please_.”

He nudges the phone back over to her without a beat.

“Do it,” he instructs sharply. “Right now. And then I’ll make you come, right away. I promise.” He adds a second finger to his slow torture, and she knows she isn’t going to survive this. “But if you don’t do what I’m asking you, I won’t. It’s really as simple as that.”

She nods, understanding. Or tries to nod, anyway. She finally finds Poe’s information in her contacts, does her best to think of reasonable lie in her addled state, and sends him the fastest text she’s ever sent someone in her entire life:

< _so sorry poe > _

_ <change of plans> _

< _i’m going to have my heat in california > _

_ <too difficult to coordinate it with travel and a conference> _

< _you seem super nice though > _

_ <and thank you for everything> _

Her assignment complete, Rey throws the phone on the floor of Solo’s car and keens with desperation and need.

“I did it,” she grits out. “I did it. All right? Please, Alpha. _Please._ I did it, I was good, I promise you I’ll be so good, I’ll—”

Solo pauses, and bends down to pick the phone up from where it fell. He reads what she sent Poe silently for a few moments, and then turns to face her.

“Good girl,” he says again. “Very good.” His eyes are dark and hungry as he says the words, and he tears her underwear all the way down her legs with one large hand. The next thing Rey knows his mouth is _right there_ , hungrily lapping up her juices as he works at her clit with the achingly soft flat of his tongue.

“Oh, god,” she groans. She grabs at the back of Solo’s head, yanking on his hair, trying to pull him inside her. “Please. _Please._ ”

Rey doesn’t remember how she got in the backseat of Solo’s car. She doesn’t think she climbed back there herself; but then again, she isn’t thinking too clearly right now. All she knows is Solo’s hands and mouth are _everywhere_ as he ravages her. His lips suckle at her breasts, her slit, as his nimble fingers work relentlessly at her clit. And as she comes again, and again, and again under his devoted ministrations, her mind leaves her body completely, letting her alpha take care of her in all the ways she needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive the still-slightly-erratic update schedule. I'm still working on my piece for [the Reylo Charity Anthology](https://reylocharityanthology.tumblr.com/) and I have a bunch of work- and birthday-related travel coming up the next few weeks. Weekly updates are still my long-term goal for this fic, though—so thank you for bearing with me. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeek, thank you so much for patience with me! The past month has been crazy with work, travel, and family visiting. One thing led to another and before I knew it, nearly a month had passed between updates.
> 
> BUT! Things are calmer now, and it's time to wrap this story up. ;)
> 
> And so here you go: nearly 5000 words of heat porn ;)

Solo’s apartment is in a nice part of the city Rey’s pretty sure she’d never been to when she lived in New York back in college. He parks his car in the garage behind his building, and then hurries her up to his third-floor apartment before she even has the chance to ask, again, if he’s certain about this.

He’s on her the second his front door slams shut behind them.

“I’m going to take care of you,” he croons into her hair. All signs of the domineering alpha from earlier are gone now. In his place is a man who is ready and willing to be everything she needs. The transformation is sudden and staggering. The smell in Solo’s apartment is such a concentrated, potent cocktail of  _ alpha alpha alpha _ it nearly brings Rey to her knees. His tongue finds the scent gland at the sensitive spot where her neck meets her shoulder, and she melts into his embrace as he worries at it, letting his compelling, intoxicating scent wash over her. 

“Hotel?” she mumbles weakly. She thinks she booked herself a hotel for this week. She’s almost positive she did. She  _ also _ thinks she suggested they go there once he was finished making her come in the backseat of his Lexus. But right now, his hands are lifting her shirt up and over her head, and the only thing she  _ really _ knows is she wants his knot so deep inside her he’ll never get it out again. 

“No hotel,” he says assertively, his lips against her cheek. And just like that, the dominant alpha is back again. He reaches around her body, and quickly unhooks her bra. A gentle brush of his hands along her shoulders and the straps slide off her arms, causing the bra to fall to the floor beside her shirt. Solo’s eyes drop to her breasts, and he bites his lip as he takes in the sight of them. He looks absolutely ravenous when he says, “I’m going to fuck you right here, in my apartment. Where I can take care of you properly.” 

The tiny part of Rey’s brain still capable of rational thought balks at this. Not because she doesn’t find the idea of spending her heat in a comfortable apartment more appealing than spending it in an anonymous hotel, Because she does. She  _ definitely _ does. It’s just...she doesn’t want to be a bother. Or ruin his sheets.

Or to imply, somehow, that there is more between them than their biological urges. Something more than simply an omega who needs an alpha to fuck her through her heat, and an alpha willing to be of service. 

She shakes her head, and tries to remember how to form words. “But, Solo—”

“This is not up for debate, Omega.” His assertive tone and his use of her designation crumbles what was left of her resolve. He kneels before her, and then leans forward, breathing out a warm, shaky breath before roughly taking her left nipple into his mouth. She opens her mouth to say something—to tell him no, perhaps; to say they really  _ should _ do this in a hotel, probably. But then he does something absolutely  _ depraved _ to her with his tongue and whatever she’d been about to tell him dies on her lips. He places his hands on her shoulders and roughly shoves her up against the wall of his living room, but she’s only dimly aware of it happening. All conscious thought is suspended in a sea of desperation and want, and she is tethered to her sanity by nothing but the feel of his hands, his lips, and his tongue upon her body. “I’m fucking you right here.”

He pops open the button of her jeans, tears down the zipper, and—

And,  _ oh _ . Yes. Yes.  _ This _ is what she wants. This is what she  _ needs _ .

“Please,” she begs, though by now she is so far gone she hardly knows what she’s begging for. The single word sounds strange to her ears. Like it’s coming from somewhere else. Everything is too hot, and too much _ ,  _ and  _ still  _ his cock, his knot is nowhere near where she needs it to be. She cants her hips obscenely towards him, desperate for something,  _ anything _ to put out the flames. “Alpha,  _ please _ .”

Before Rey can ponder what any of this means, Solo scoops her up into his arms as easily as if she weighed nothing at all. He practically sprints with her through his apartment until he gets to the darkened bedroom in the back.

His scent here is so strong Rey’s knees would buckle if he weren’t already carrying her.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” he murmurs, over and over again, soothingly, into her ear. His words, his gentle voice, his scent, are like a life raft, and she clings to them, to him, with everything she has. He doesn’t even bother turning on the light before laying her down on his bed, as gently as he might a china doll.

“Please,” she begs again, when his hands leave her for the briefest of moments. She feels wild and drunk and burning hot, and even though Solo is  _ finally _ taking off the rest of her clothes now, so rapidly she might worry he’d tear them if she were able to think straight, it’s not nearly fast enough. 

When at last she is naked, his eyes hungrily take in every bare inch of her from where he stands at the foot of the bed. Her nipples are rock hard points, and so alarmingly sensitive right now she can  _ feel _ his gaze as his eyes pass over them. With a slowness that makes Rey want to scream in frustration, he undoes his leather belt, takes off his slacks. Lifts his shirt up and over his head before dropping it to the floor beside the bed.

She takes in his eight-pack. His absolutely enormous cock. She groans at the sight of it and writhes on the bed, spreading herself as wide as she can, opening herself up for her Alpha.

A moment later, he’s climbing on top of her, spreading her knees apart even further, and--

“I’ve got you,” he says again, more raggedly this time, as he nudges her entrance with his cock, the tip dripping with so much pre-cum and alpha pheremones it feels like she might actually die from relief and pleasure.

“Please,” she pants again. And again. She whines incoherently as she shimmies on the bed, trying to push forward, trying to pull him inside her. He’s there. He’s  _ right there _ , so close to where she needs him to be, but he’s not—“ _ Please _ . I need you inside me, I  _ need _ —”

“I know what you need, little one.” 

With one hard, sharp jerk of his hips he thrusts home, filling her all at once, and so completely it punches the air from her lungs. 

_ Yes. Oh God,  _ yes.

On reflex, Rey rears back on the bed a little beneath him as her body struggles to accommodate him. But he’s just so  _ big _ , and already he’s fucking into her with such abandon, his balls slamming hard against her ass with every thrust, that the omega inside her demands she just lie there take it like the good girl her alpha wants her to be. She wraps her legs around his waist and tries to match his frantic pace, but it’s already too much for her. So she lies there and takes it, and takes it, and  _ takes  _ it, basking in the joy that comes from her alpha fucking her, using her, for his pleasure and for her own.

“Yes,” she whimpers. “Alpha,  _ yes.” _ She’s close now, already so close to the edge. He slides one hand beneath her ass and shoves a pillow beneath her, changing the angle of her hips just  _ so _ . His cock brushes up against her front wall like this, just as his thumb finds her clit, and it feels  _ amazing _ , his hands gripping her hips and her thighs gripping her waist, and—

Her orgasm crashes over her like a tidal wave, unexpected and devastating. It shakes her to pieces beneath him, and she shrieks her pleasure like a banshee, her vision whiting out as her mind goes blissfully blank.

“Good,” Solo grunts into her ear as she flutters, hard, around his cock. His thrusts are growing erratic now, and even more frantic than they’d been before. This is nothing like the orgasms she gave herself at the airport, or even the ones he gave her in the backseat of his car. This, right here, is  _ life-changing.  _ The sound of his voice, his scent, his hands on her hips and the feel of his cock deep inside her as he thrusts and she spasms, are the only things that exist in this world. “ _ Oh _ , that’s so good.” 

When she finally comes back down to earth, Rey threads her fingers through his mussed hair and tugs his head down to her lips.

“Come for me, Alpha,” she murmurs urgently. Because the feel of him inside her is  _ amazing _ , but— “I want you to fill me up with your cum. I need it.”

She does. She needs it so badly she can hardly breathe.

Solo makes a loud, desperate, inhuman sound in response, and roughly slams his hips into hers a few more times before finally stuttering to a jagged stop on top of her.

He groans something incoherent into her ear, and then empties inside her, his knot already beginning to swell.

He stays like that for a very long time, lying on top of her, motionless and boneless, the two of them locked together in an embrace older than time.

The last thing Rey thinks before exhaustion finally claims her is that this, in truth, probably _is_ better than a hotel.

 

* * *

 

When Rey wakes up sometime in the middle of the first night, the raging fire in the pit of her belly is tamped down enough to allow a few brief moments of rational thought.

It won’t last. She knows that, has had enough heats by now to know her body’s natural rhythms—but it’s a welcome relief all the same. She knows better than to waste a single moment of this precious, temporary lucidity by trying to go back to sleep.

She opens her eyes, rolls over onto her side, and then suddenly realizes that Solo is awake, too. He’s lying on his side as well, facing her, and just…. staring at her, his face only a few inches away from hers.  

It’s so dark in here Rey can barely even make out the shape of his bedroom furniture. But it’s a clear, cloudless night, and a little moonlight streams in through the slats covering his windows. The light reflects in his dark eyes, making his whole face look softer, and more relaxed, than she’s ever seen it before. 

She can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking right now. Is he... enjoying this, what they’re doing here? Or does he regret his decision to bring her back to his apartment for her heat? She stares at him as he continues to watch her, but his face gives nothing away.

Rey sits up a little in bed and sighs, and then leans back on her elbows. Solo’s soft sheets fall to her waist in the process, exposing her bare chest to the cool night air. His eyes  _ had _ been fixed firmly on her face, but they drop immediately to her breasts. The hunger she’s seen in his eyes many times by this point is back again, and Rey can’t help but shiver as she feels her temporary grip on sanity already start to slip away in response to it.

He licks his lips, and leans in closer to her body, his breath fanning warm and soft across her chest.

“I’m… so glad you’re here, Rey,” he tells her earnestly. 

Her eyes go wide—because whatever she’d thought he might say to her during her heat, it wasn’t  _ that _ . She opens her mouth to ask him what he means, exactly….

But then his lips close around her nipple, and he sucks,  _ hard _ , and her brief respite is over.

“Alpha,” she moans, the omega inside her once more in complete control. She scrabbles desperately under the sheets for the only thing in this world that can put out the flames.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, for what might be the thousandth time, as he gives it to her. 

 

* * *

 

 

“What’s your favorite food?”

Rey blinks uncomprehendingly up at Solo several times before his words finally filter through the thick, post-coital haze currently taking up the vast majority of space in her brain.

“Um. What?”

Solo pulls back, but only enough so he can see her face. His knot is still too big and too swollen, and buried far too deep inside of her, for him to get any further away from her than that. In fact, pulling away from her even this much causes the angle of his penetration to change, and Rey has to dig her fingernails into her palms to keep from falling apart again on the spot.

He seems to feel it, too. His fingertips flutter a little at her hips, and he breathes deeply through his nose several times, as though fighting to regain control.

At length, he swallows, and tries again. 

“Food,” he repeats. “I need to know your favorite food.” 

The corners of his lips quirk up into a strange sort of almost-smile. (Rey tries to hide her surprise. Solo can actually  _ smile? _ Who knew?) He pulls her gently to him again and wraps his strong arms protectively around her body.

They sigh in unison.

It just feels...  _ so _ good to be held by him like this. 

Rey is hardly small. But Solo is  _ enormous _ , all over. He’s so much bigger than her that when he holds her close, it almost feels like she could disappear inside him. Ordinarily that thought wouldn’t appeal to her but right now, in the middle of her heat, she can’t think of anything more comforting, more desirable than for her alpha to simply... swallow her up. For him to absorb her completely, and carry her with him around inside his body. Protected from all dangers. Safe.

She can’t think of anything, in this moment, that she wants more. 

When she doesn’t answer his question, he continues. “I have some stuff to eat in the fridge, but I... wasn’t exactly expecting this.” He swallows, and she can feel his Adam’s apple bob against her cheek. He hasn’t shaved in at least a day or two. Maybe longer. His stubble is rough against her sensitive skin, making her shudder. “I mostly just have Chinese leftovers and random condiments. A couple beers, I think. It’s not enough to last us more than a day or so.”

Rey burrows more closely into his embrace, and buries her nose in the scent gland at the base of his neck. She can feel his pulse thrum hotly beneath his skin, and she doesn’t fight the urge to lick him there, to taste him right at the source. 

He groans, and his grip on her tightens as her tongue darts out to taste him a second time. He tastes like musk, like their mingled sweat, like their sex. It’s enough—the taste of him; the obscene noises he makes as she licks and sucks at his gland—to cause another rush of slick to pool inside her, despite the fact that they both just came a few minutes ago and his knot is still buried within her. 

Will she ever get used to his scent? Build up more of a tolerance to it, or something? Solo’s still groaning into her hair as she licks his gland—and somehow, she doesn’t think she ever will.

“Pizza,” she eventually grits out. She tries to move her hips, to get him to thrust up into her a little so she can get some desperately needed friction. But her range of movement is extremely limited right now. So is his.

She eventually gives up trying, and lets out a high-pitched whine of frustration.

Solo picks up on her frustration right away. He’s so attuned to all of her needs right now. It’s incredible, really.  _ He’s _ incredible.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers.

A moment later, one of his large hands slides down between their bodies. Before she can even beg him to touch her, his fingertips find her clit, drawing tight rapid circles against it and pulling wretched cries from her throat.

_ “Yes _ ,” she moans, the spiral inside her coiling tighter.

“I’ll get you a pizza,” he murmurs into her hair. He’s trying to thrust now, too; but it’s not really working, so he stops, eyes squeezed tightly shut and free hand fisting the sheets beside her head. He’s waiting, she knows, for his knot to subside enough to fuck her properly. He wants to fuck her as desperately as she wants to be fucked. The realization hits her like a mack truck, and nearly brings her to orgasm right then and there. 

The fingers on her clit don’t stop moving. If anything, they speed up. 

“Solo—” she groans. His fingers are still moving, moving, moving against her. And she’s close. She’s  _ so close.  _ “ _ Please.” _

“I’ll make the delivery guy leave it outside my door, little one,” he gasps. “Just—tell me what kind of pizza you like, and I’ll get it for you. I’ll get you… I’ll get you a  _ hundred _ fucking pizzas if you want. I’ll get you anything you need.”

A minute later, Solo’s knot finally softens enough for him to move again.

He fucks her so hard and so well they forget about food. 

 

* * *

 

 

When Rey wakes up on the morning of the third day, she can tell it’s almost over. 

It’s not  _ totally _ over. Not yet. There’s no sign yet of the the intense soreness between her legs that always sets in once her heat has completely run its course. And she knows if she touched herself there, right now, it wouldn’t be long at all before she became a mindless, writhing mess again.

But right now, she feels hungry. So hungry, in fact, that her stomach is rumbling. During her heats, Rey usually goes days without even thinking of food. The fact that right now, all she wants to do is find the leftover pizza from the other night and gobble down a slice or three is definitely a sign that soon enough, another heat will be behind her.

Rey stirs a little in the bed, and then does a full-body stretch to loosen up her aching muscles. She groans a little as she moves, relishing how  _ good _ it feels to be somewhat in control of her faculties again, and to be one step closer to having her mind and her back body in sync.

As she moves, she notices a heavy arm slung over her waist and a solid, unmoving weight at her back. She cranes her neck a little and sees Solo, lying beside her, sound asleep. His features are completely relaxed in slumber, the worry lines at the corners of his eyes and his lips smoothed out as he breathes.

In spite of everything that’s happened between them the past few days—and the past few years—something about the way he looks right now makes Rey’s breath catch. 

She’s seen him just about every which way since he brought her here three nights ago. She’s seen him on his back as she’s ridden him. She’s seen him on his knees as he’s made her come over, and over again, with his tongue. But this is the first time she’s seen him actually sleeping, the first time she’s seen him this completely... unguarded. Vulnerable. 

A strange, fierce protectiveness she doesn’t know what to do with bubbles up inside her as she watches him.

_ He must be exhausted _ , she muses. He’d have to be, given how completely he’s attended to every single one of her needs. Whenever she’s begged him to fuck her, he was there, his dick at the ready, regardless of how short a time it had been since their last round. Every time she’s woken up in the night, feverish and delirious, he’s been there, waiting for her.

Rey casts around on the floor for the clothes she hasn’t worn since he brought her here days ago. She tries to pull on her shirt, but winces at the feel of the too-scratchy cotton fabric against her skin. She’s still too sensitive to wear clothes, apparently. Her body, and the omega currently in charge of it, both want her naked just a bit longer.

Giving up, she pads into Solo’s living room. She has vague memories of him carrying her out here two nights ago and hand-feeding her bits of cut-up cheese pizza. But she didn’t really get a good look at her surroundings then. She hadn’t cared to look at anything at all, really, but Solo’s large fingers as they slid between his lips, and then later his thick cock as he shoved it between her thighs.

Now, though, Rey takes a moment to really look at the apartment. She takes in the spacious living room she’s standing in, with its vaulted ceilings and incredibly nice leather furniture. She eyes the framed paintings on the wall, and the enormous Oriental rug that covers most of the room’s hardwood floors.

She knows, from her time working in an antiques shop back in London, that this rug likely cost more than even a tenured professor at NYU would probably earn in a month.

Rey bites her lip, wondering exactly what kind of background Solo must have to be able to live in a place like this in New York City on a history professor’s salary.

And then she realizes, with an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach, that in truth, she knows basically nothing about him at all.

 

* * *

 

 

When Rey finally has a few slices of pizza on a paper plate in front of her, she sits down on Solo’s leather couch with her phone in her hands. 

It’s been three days since she last checked messages. Heat or no heat, she’s still the most junior faculty member in her department. While Davis is a pretty progressive university in terms of heat leaves and such, she doesn’t really have the luxury of ignoring all emails for four days in a row. 

She takes one giant bite of cheese pizza (she can’t remember the last time something tasted this good; she’ll have to remember to find out where Solo got this from), and scrolls through her emails distractedly.

She finds an email from Solo, sent just the other day. It looks like she must have opened it at some point, but—

She pauses, because now that it’s staring her in the face again, she vaguely remembers getting an email from Solo while at the airport. She’d started reading it, she thinks. But then—

But  _ then _ , she’d thought about him fucking her, and she’d come so hard in that gross old bathroom stall she nearly dropped her phone.

Blushing a little at the memory, and shaking her head vigorously (she needs to go through the rest of these messages; she  _ needs _ to keep her head clear for at least a few more minutes) she clicks on Solo’s email and begins to read.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_ Thurs 3/07/2018 7:23 PM _

**_From_ ** _ : Benjamin C. Solo ( _ [ _ solo.benjamin@nyu.edu _ ](mailto:solo.benjamin@nyu.edu) _ )  _

**_To:_ ** _ Rey Johnson ( _ [ _ johnson.rey@ucd.edu _ ](mailto:johnson.rey@ucd.edu) _ )  _

**_Subject_ ** _ : (none) _

_ Dear Rey, _

_ I’ve been meaning to write you for some time.  _

_ The thing is _ ,  _ though _ :  _ I’m a coward. A complete coward. Every time I almost work up the nerve to write to you and explain myself, the only thing I can see in my mind’s eye is the way you stormed out of my hotel room after I made that stupid comment about the relative merits of our presentations. (I deserved that treatment, of course. I don’t deny it. Either way, every time I try and write you, I ultimately lose my nerve, and the email never gets sent.)  _

_ Johnson _ —Rey— _ I’m no good at this. I’m a coward, and I’m an asshole, and I don’t think I’m ever going to change on either of those two scores. But I want _ — _ no; I  _ need— _ to see you when you’re here next week. I’m no good at this stuff in person, but I think I might be even worse over email. Which, when I stop to think about it, is probably how this whole fucking mess of a situation got started in the first place, back when you were still finishing up your dissertation and like an idiot I thought I would try to “help” you. _

_ So, cutting to the chase here: If you think you could possibly stand spending ninety minutes alone with me, having dinner or getting drinks or something, at some point during your stay in New York next week, I’d love to take you out and do my best to fix this mess I’ve created. If, instead, you’d prefer to keep our interactions to the bare minimum required for our participation in this conference, that’s obviously fine, too (though it is in no way my own, personal preference).  _

_ I hope to hear from you soon. _

_ Sincerely, _

 

  * __bcs__



 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Rey is so absorbed in reading Solo’s email that at first, she doesn’t register that he is no longer sound asleep in his bedroom. It’s only when he clears his throat and puts a large hand on her shoulder does she realize that he is, in fact, standing right behind her.

She springs from the couch, and whirls around to face him, holding her phone tight to her chest. 

“Solo,” she squeaks in surprise. 

_ What did he mean by all this _ ? Her brain is whirling furiously.  _ What is he  _ talking _ about? He.. he wanted to take me out to dinner next week? But he  _ hates _ me! I don’t understand…. _

It’s on the tip of her tongue to ask him these questions. To ask him what, exactly, his intention was when he wrote this email to her the other day. But then—

But  _ then _ , she realizes that Solo’s not wearing a shirt. All he’s got on are a pair of baggy grey pajama pants, which hang dangerously low on his hips. Rey’s eyes trail down, and down, and down his muscular chest, following the course line of hair that starts at his navel and then disappears, tantalizingly, beneath his waistband.

Rey swallows thickly, feeling the heat hormones that are nearly, but not quite, finished with her begin to ramp up again in earnest. And just like that, the conversation she knows she needs to have with him drifts right out of her head.

Talking can wait. Talking will  _ have _ to wait. Right now, what she needs is for him to fuck her.

“Good morning,” he says. His voice is gravelly with sleep, and Rey can’t help but wonder what he’d sound like right now if she got down on her hands knees and sucked him dry. He yawns, and stretches, lifting his arms up over his head, showing off his unbelievable chest even more than he already is. When he’s finished, he drops his arms back down by his sides. He cocks his head at her and frowns. “What are you doing out of bed?”

It’s an accusation, and a command, more than it is a question. And when he pulls her to him, her body responds to the authority in his tone. 

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, her heart racing in her ears. She reaches down, and cups him gently in her hand by way of wordless apology. He’s already rock hard for her, and she bites her lip in anticipation. She strokes him, and watches as his eyes flutter closed. “I’m sorry, Alpha.”

She lets him lead her back to the bedroom, the email she just read temporarily forgotten.

“It’s not time for you to get out of bed yet,” he murmurs against her lips. He lies her back down on the bed, and she has no idea how it’s even  _ possible _ to be this horny just from the sound of a man’s voice—but here she is, and here  _ he _ is, and there’s no denying just how desperately she wants him inside her. “Because I’m nowhere near finished with you yet, Omega.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to include a little plug for another project I've been working on in recent months! On November 15, [the Reylo Charity Anthology](https://reylocharityanthology.tumblr.com/) will be released. It's a collaboration between about seventy Reylo writers and artists to raise money for Save the Children, the ACLU, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. There's gonna be a LOT of great stuff in this anthology (as well as a little fic I've contributed, lol), and you don't want to miss out. :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided this fic needs an epilogue. So I've dialed the chapter count up to Eleven. ;)
> 
> I'm unexpectedly NOT travelling for Thanksgiving this year so I hope to have this story wrapped up very soon!

Rey wakes up again shortly before dawn to the smell of bacon and eggs wafting in from the kitchen.

She runs her tongue across her front teeth experimentally, and almost gags. The inside of her mouth tastes like something crawled down her throat overnight and died. But Rey can’t deny that breakfast smells incredible. Her stomach rumbles loudly in agreement. 

It’s definitely time to put some actual food into her body after four straight days of being fucked into oblivion.

Rey sits up gingerly, and winces at the sharp, sudden stab of discomfort she feels between her legs. She’s bone dry down there, and sore in a way that can only mean that the madness of her heat is finally, and completely, behind her. 

She grabs the first things she can find to put on—the underwear she last wore four days ago, half-hidden beneath Solo’s dresser; and the old t-shirt he threw on when he met the pizza delivery guy at the door. The shirt smells like him; like his soap, like his sweat. Even though she’s been breathing him in basically nonstop for days now, the smell of him on his shirt, and against her cheek, leaves her feeling a little lightheaded in a way that has nothing to do with how hungry she is.

Before she can talk herself out of doing it Rey pulls the shirt on over her head. It’s softer than any guy’s t-shirt has any right to be, and goes all the way down to her knees.

She doesn’t get more than a few steps outside his bedroom door before she sees him, dressed impeccably in a dark suit and striped tie, and carrying a tray piled high with all the delicious food she’s been smelling. He’s angled towards his bedroom and clearly headed in that direction. Headed towards her. But he stops in his tracks the minute he sees her.

His eyes go wide as they slowly rove down, and then up, her body.  

“You’re awake,” he says abruptly. His voice does a strange little upturn at the end of the sentence, like he’s asking a question and wants her to confirm or deny it.

She smiles at him. He took such good care of her these past few days. Not only does she  _ not _ have even the slightest hint of a heat hangover, he was apparently just about to bring her breakfast in bed. A breakfast in bed that, from the looks of things, he made himself. She figures he deserves a smile from her, if nothing else.

“Yep. I’m awake,” she confirms. She eyes the tray in his hands, jaw dropping open when she sees everything that’s on it. “Oh, my god. Are those waffles?”

He chuckles a little. It’s an incredibly nervous sound.  (Why is he nervous, after everything they did to each other this week?) 

“They are, indeed, waffles,” he admits. “And eggs. And... bacon. I didn’t know what you like for breakfast, and I figured you’d be hungry after…. everything. So. I made a little of everything.” 

He sets the tray down on the coffee table in the living room, and then stands up again, looking at least as nervous as he sounds.

“Thanks.” Her stomach rumbles again, even more loudly this time. She rolls her eyes at herself, and at how obvious she’s being. “This looks… incredible. I had no idea you could cook.” She walks to the couch ( _ the couch he fucked her on the other night; the one where she sat on his lap and he made her come on his cock again and again and _ —) and sits down on it, the food Solo made for her making her mouth water.

She takes a bite, and then another, groaning with pleasure. 

For his part, Solo just... stands there, a little awkwardly, hands clasped behind his back as he watches her dig into her breakfast. Rey would almost feel self-conscious about it, the way he’s staring at her, despite the fact that he did  _ far _ more than just stare at her these past few days… if it weren’t for how absolutely starving she is right now.

Eventually, he says: “You’re... wearing my clothes.” His voice sounds a little strange. Strangled, somehow. Rey looks up from her plate mid-bite and sees he’s still staring at her, a completely unreadable expression on his face.

Rey sets down her fork and swallows. She glances down at chest, then looks back at him. “Um. Yeah,” she admits. She bites her lip, feeling sheepish. Because yes, his t-shirt was the first thing she could find to put on, and it smelled  _ incredible _ and she couldn’t help herself. But she probably shouldn’t have just assumed he’d be ok with her wearing his stuff all casually like this. She’s not his omega, or anything. Not really.  She’s not even his girlfriend. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“Oh, no,” he says quickly. “No. Don’t be sorry. It’s fine. My shirt suits you. Although…”

He trails off, and looks away. His jaw works, making him look even more nervous. What is going  _ on _ with him?

“Although, what?” she prompts. 

His eyes snap back to her. “ _ Although _ , seeing you in my clothes right now kind of makes me want to just… tear them off you.”

His admission echos off the walls in his too-quiet apartment, and then hangs heavy in the air between them. Rey’s heat just ended; if there were ever going to be a time when she’d be immune to an alpha’s advances, it would be now. But his words, and the barely-concealed desire she can see in his eyes now that he’s said them, are setting off sparks in her sluggish brain, and make her body tingle for him in a way that shouldn’t even be biologically  _ possible _ after how thoroughly he fucked her this week.

He looks at her expectantly, his eyes hungry, yet guarded. When a few moments pass and Rey still doesn’t know what to say to him, he sighs a little, and shrugs his shoulders. 

“You can stay here as long as you want,” he tells her, very quietly. He nods at the breakfast tray. “And eat as much as you like. I have to leave, though. I teach this afternoon, and...” He trails off, and shrugs again. “And, yeah.”

Rey nods, and then picks up her fork again. She starts poking absentmindedly at the eggs on her plate. It all smells so good, and she’s ravenous. Somehow, though, she finds she cannot bring herself to eat.

“Thanks, Solo.” She might be mistaken—most of her attention right now is on her plate, not the man who brought it to her—but at the word  _ Solo _ she thinks she sees him flinch a little out of the corner of her eye. She lifts the fork to her lips, and opens her mouth as she slides the food inside. It tastes even better than it smells. How the hell does he even know how to cook like this? “I’ll… see you later? At the conference, I mean.”

He doesn’t say anything in response for a very long moment. Rey continues to eat her breakfast, eyes on her plate; but she can feel his gaze on her, watching her, as acutely as any physical touch.

“Yeah. See you later, Rey,” Solo eventually agrees. He picks up the leather briefcase propped against the front door, and slings the strap over his shoulder.

He turns to face her, and gives her a small smile she can feel all the way down to her toes.

When he’s gone, Rey flings herself back against the couch cushions (they smell like him, too;  _ fuck _ ), and covers her face with her hands. She can still see his smile in her mind’s eye. She can still feel his touch, even though he’s no longer here and he hasn’t touched her in over ten hours.

Her heat is over. So why does she still  _ want  _ him so much?

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not until much later—after Rey has finished her breakfast, and drunk four cups of strong coffee, and showered and dressed, and gotten herself completely ready and presentable for the conference—that she remembers the email Solo sent her the other day.

The memory comes out of nowhere, and hits her so hard it’s like a shot of adrenaline to the heart. She drops the ceramic coffee mug she’d been cradling in her hands, and watches, helplessly, as it shatters on the tiled kitchen floor.

_ I’m no good at this, _ he’d said. 

_ I’d love to take you out and do my best to fix this mess I’ve created, _ he’d said.

He’d apologized to her. Sort of. Well; he’d come as close to apologizing as he is probably capable of getting. And she’d forgotten all about the whole thing, in the heat of the moment. And he’d…

And, he hadn’t brought it up at all. Not even once, the whole time she was here.

Had he been expecting  _ her _ to bring it up? Is that why he’d acted kind of… weird, this morning? Because she hadn’t?

“Fuck,” she mutters under her breath. And then, a second time, much louder: “ _ Fuck _ .”

What on God’s green earth is she supposed to do now? 

 

* * *

 

 

Columbia University, Rey decides right away, is one of the most intimidating places she’s ever been in her life.

It isn’t that she’s never  _ been _ to a prestigious university campus before. She did her undergrad in New York, after all. And she got her PhD at UC Berkeley. But there’s something about  _ Columbia _ —not just a prestigious school, but one of the world’s oldest and most preeminent institutions—that makes her feel every bit the London street urchin she once was, and reminds her that compared to many in academia, her pedigree is laughable.

But she doesn’t have time for either self-doubt or self-pity right now. 

“I’m Rey Johnson,” Rey tells the woman sitting at the registration table. She’s wearing her most comfortable  _ conference-appropriate  _ suit (her abdomen is still a little bloated; par for the course, unfortunately, when she’s less than twelve hours out from a hard heat). It’s not one of her nicer suits, which does little to quell her anxiety and the nagging feeling that she just doesn’t belong here. But she does her best to shove those thoughts aside. She squares her shoulders, reminds herself that she was specifically invited to submit a paper to this conference, and tries to feign confidence she does not feel. “From UC Davis. I’m presenting tomorrow afternoon.”

The short, blonde woman glances down at the spreadsheet in front of her, and pages through it with a yellow highlighter. “Ah, yes. There you are.” She highlights Rey’s name in yellow, and then hands her a pink paper gift bag. She nods at it. “That’s from the conference organizers.” 

Rey peeks inside. Sure enough, it’s full of the kinds of tchotchkes she’s come to expect when coming to these things. Pens that say  _ Columbia University _ ; a coffee mug with a map of the New York subway on it. Useless little souvenirs that conference hosts always seem to think their attendees want, but which will inevitably make their way to the Goodwill pile once Rey gets back home.

“Thanks,” she says politely, tucking the bag into her purse. She scans through the conference schedule on her phone, noting the time and location of her presentation, before stuffing it into her purse as well and making her way to the elevator. 

“All right, Johnson,” she mutters to herself as she waits for the elevator car to arrive. “Time to get to work.”

She has to be completely prepared for her talk tomorrow, first, before she tries to get in touch with Solo. She just has to. If he agrees to meet up with her tonight (which she suspects he will),  _ and _ if their ensuing conversation goes the way she thinks it might... she’s going to have a very hard time focusing on work afterwards. Or on much of anything at all, probably, that doesn’t have to do with him, and the way he makes her feel whenever he touches her.

She could, of course, be presuming too much. Reading too much into what he put in his email from the other day. 

_ (I want _ — _ no; I  _ need— _ to see you when you’re here next week.) _

He’d written it before he knew she was about to start her heat. He’d had absolutely no idea she was more or less going to show up on his doorstep and basically beg him to fuck her.

_ No _ , she decides, shaking her head.

She probably isn’t reading too much into his email at all.

 

* * *

 

 

_ Are you busy, Solo? _

It takes Rey a moment to work up the courage to hit  _ send _ on her text. When she finally does, she lets out a shaky breath, and then leans back against the headboard of her hotel room bed to wait for his response. 

She finished the slides she’s using tomorrow. Her suit is ironed, and is hanging neatly in the closet beside the plush white terrycloth robe provided by the hotel. She knows she needs to text Finn at some point, and find out whether her ditching Poe this week has caused any collateral damage in the two men’s friendship. She also knows that if she  _ has _ made a giant mess of things, she’ll need to do a bit of groveling to get Finn to forgive her.

But all that can wait. Right now, there is literally nothing else Rey has to do besides get in touch with Solo and see if he’s willing to meet her for dinner tonight. 

It feels like hours before he finally replies. 

**No** , is all his text says.

_ What are you doing? _ , she asks.

**Not much.**

**I’m at home, reading.**

**Where are you?**

_ I’m at the Edge Hotel _

_ I checked in this afternoon _

_ Figured I’d do it today, since my talk is tomorrow afternoon _

There’s a very long pause before Solo texts her again. The three telltale bubbles eventually show up, letting her know he’s writing something, but then they disappear again before his message finally shows up, minutes later, on her phone:

**You didn’t have to leave my apartment, Rey.**

**I told you you could stay as long as you wanted.**

**I meant it.**

**You could have even stayed through the conference if you’d wanted to.**

Rey stares at his texts for a long moment, studying the words, biting her lip and thinking hard. She tries, and mostly fails, to ignore the way her heart leaps at the strong, if unspoken, implication that he still wanted her in his apartment even though her heat is over now.

_ I don’t think that would have been a good idea, Solo _

_ at least _

_ not yet. _

Another pause.

**Not yet?**

_ Right _

_ not yet _

_ I have a talk to get ready for _

_ and your apartment _

_ and you _

_ are both _

_ incredibly _

She pauses again, trying to think of how best to phrase what she’s thinking.

But Solo’s clearly out of patience. 

**Incredibly what?**

**Tell me.**

**My apartment and I are both incredibly what, Rey?**

As she reads his texts, and then reads them again, Rey realizes, for the very first time, that at some point he must have stopped calling her  _ Johnson _ . When did that happen? For years, they were nothing to each other but  _ Johnson _ and  _ Solo _ . Two academics on opposite coasts with opposite personalities and radically different ideas on how to approach their research.

But at some point, to him anyway… she became  _ Rey _ .

How the hell has she missed _this_? She can’t believe she hadn’t noticed it until now.

Suddenly, what she needs to do next is crystal clear.

_ Distracting, Ben. _

_ You and your apartment are both incredibly distracting. _

There.

She called him Ben.

Ben.  _ Ben. _

She isn’t certain she will ever get used to calling him by his first name. But if he’s calling her  _ Rey _ now, and if he’s willing to explain what he meant in his email to her... she’s willing to give it a try.

This much, at least, she can do.

_ And I definitely want to stay in the conference hotel while i’m in new york _

_ because of how distracting you and your apartment both are _

_ i need to make a good impression at this conference. _

_ But I read your email _

_ From the other day _

_ and if you still want to have dinner or drinks or something... _

She pauses. The ball’s in his court now. Did he mean what he’d said to her?

**Oh my god.**

**Rey, yes.**

**I do.**

**Very much so.**

**Are you free tonight?**

Smiling, she replies:

_ My schedule’s wide open. _


	10. Chapter 10

“Here we are.”

At Solo’s words— _Ben_ ’s words—their Uber slows, and then pulls over in front of an upscale-looking restaurant.

Ben’s hand has been resting on Rey’s upper thigh for most of the drive from the hotel, reassuring and warm. Now that they’re at their destination his fingers tighten on her leg almost imperceptibly, a moment before he lifts his hand and moves it away. Rey whimpers a little, in spite of herself, at the loss of physical contact.  

The restaurant Ben chose for their date ( _s that what this is? a date?_ ) is not at all what Rey pictured when he proposed this. She knew he wanted to talk, so she figured he wouldn’t take them to some noisy bar. But this place is downright... _elegant_. The tables are covered with white linen tablecloths, and the waiters are in suits that look more expensive than most of what’s hanging in Rey’s closet. The lighting in this room is so low, if it weren’t for the candles everywhere she wouldn’t be able to see much of anything at all.

“What is this place?” Rey murmurs to him as they approach the front entrance. Ben holds his arm out for her, and she takes it without thinking. Her breath hitches at the way he tucks her closer to his side, protectively. Possessively.

“It’s supposed to be wonderful. But, full disclosure—I’ve never been here.” Ben’s scent is strong and soothing, compelling her to trust him. It makes it hard for Rey to focus on much of anything at all aside from how wonderful it feels to be this close to him, and the low timbre of his voice. He ducks his head a little and murmurs, right into her ear: “I’ve never had reason to come here, you see. Not until now.”

Rey swallows, and tries to ignore the butterflies that have suddenly taken residence in the pit of her stomach.

“Table for two?” a woman asks. Rey’s head jerks up; she hadn’t even realized they’d reached the hostess’ station.

“Yes, please,” Ben replies. “I have a reservation under _Solo_.”

The woman behind the hostess stand is young, blonde, and pretty. An omega, Rey realizes with a sudden, unexpected stab of irritation. If the younger woman notices this, though, she shows no sign of it as she leafs through her reservation printout. Rey glances up at Ben; she is relieved to see he’s looking right back at her.

“Ah! Here you are.” The hostess jabs her finger at the page, and looks up at them. “Follow me.”

“Shall we?” Ben asks Rey in a quiet voice. The corners of his lips are quirked up into a small, knowing smile. Rey stares at his mouth, nearly overcome with the sudden urge to kiss him. She digs her fingernails into her palms, and reminds herself there’ll be plenty of time for that later. Maybe. Depending on how tonight goes.

She clears her throat.

“Yes,” she says. “Lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Rey was growing up, other girls would sometimes talk about how you needed to be sure to eat sparingly when on a date.

“If you’re out with a guy, and he’s paying for your meal,” one particular friend, whose name Rey has long since forgotten, liked to remind everyone, “you should be sure not to run up too much of a check. Especially if he’s an alpha.”

At the time, Rey had been seventeen, and only eighteen months removed from life on the streets. This advice seemed ridiculous to her then. If someone wanted to buy her a big meal, why on earth would she pass up the opportunity?

She’s been off the streets for more than ten years now, but the advice seems just as absurd.

“I’ll have a filet mignon,” Rey says to the well-dressed waiter taking their order. “Medium-rare. And… um... a glass of chardonnay, please.”

Once the waiter is gone, Ben shoots her a disgusted look. Rey clenches her hands into fists reflexively, as she waits for him to reprimand her for ordering the most expensive thing in this ridiculously expensive restaurant.  

But he doesn’t.

“White wine with steak?” he asks instead, eyebrow raised. “Really? That’s… kind of gross.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “Has anyone ever told you you’re _kind of_ a snob?”

He grins at her accusation. How many times has he smiled tonight? Rey’s lost count.

“Frequently.”

 

* * *

 

 

Rey’s phone buzzes with a text about a minute after their server brings their salads.

She doesn’t pull her phone from her purse to check, but she knows it’s Finn.

He assured her, shortly before Ben picked her up tonight, that everything would probably be fine with Poe. Poe Dameron, according to Finn, was pretty laid-back for an alpha. Of course, the idea of an alpha being laid-back about anything is ridiculous. Doubly so when the issue is an omega calling off a heat tryst at the last minute. But Rey’s roiling nerves have her wound tighter than a drum right now. And so for now, she’s willing to suspend disbelief and imagine it’s all going to work out between Finn and Poe.

Better check Finn’s latest text to make sure, though. Rey’s a half-second from excusing herself so she can check her phone in the ladies’ room when Ben clears his throat, and slides his salad plate to the side.

“Rey,” he says meaningfully. His eyes are dark, serious. The look he’s giving her drives any thought of leaving this table right out of her head.

She swallows. Nods. “Yeah?”

“I’m so glad you agreed to have dinner with me.”

They haven’t spoken about anything of substance since he picked her up at the hotel bar an hour ago, looking like a snack in the same dark suit he was wearing this morning. They’ve spoken idly about the weather. About tomorrow’s conference schedule (he’s set to present in the morning; she’s not until the afternoon). He complimented her on her knee-length green dress when he picked her up, his eyes on her modest cleavage and the gentle curve of her ass rather than her face. Once they were in the Uber she told him he didn’t look half bad, himself (the understatement of the year).

The idle chit chat part of the evening is over now, though. Ben’s tone, the subtle way his hands are shaking, and the tight, anxious set of his jaw, tell Rey that whatever he’s about to say next is the reason he wanted to meet tonight.

Rey clears her throat. _God ,_  she’s nervous. Because this is it.

This is everything.

“I’m glad I came,” she says, in a small voice.

At this admission, Solo— _Ben_ —reaches across the table and takes her hand. He runs the pad of his thumb gently across her knuckles, back and forth. Back and forth. His touch makes her shiver. Will she ever get used to how _big_ he is? His hands—one on hers; the other resting on his lap—are the size of dinner plates. She watches, transfixed, as he gently circles each of her knuckles with the pad of his thumb before moving on to the next one, and then the next.

He has a small callus on the side of his thumb, rough against her skin. Rey doesn’t know how she’s never noticed it before.

With difficulty, she tears her eyes away from their hands. He’s staring at her unabashedly, dark eyes intense and unwavering as they reflect the light from the small votive candle on their table.

“Rey,” he says again. “You are…how do I put this?” He trails off. Blows out a breath. The hand on hers starts to tremble a little. Or maybe it’s her hand that’s shaking. “You are... well...” Another pause.

She raises an eyebrow. “I am… what, exactly?”

“You are… _”_ He trails off again, and then squeezes her hand; like he’s trying to gather courage from her touch. “Incredible _,_ Rey. You are absolutely incredible.”

Rey blinks at him, stunned. She opens and closes her mouth a few times as she tries to think of what to say in response to _that._

“I’m.. _what_?” She shakes her head, eyes wide. “I am… I am _not._ ”

The corners of Ben’s lips quirk up into another small smile. “But you are. Rey, I’ve been surrounded by pompous assholes my whole life. The higher I’ve climbed professionally, the more insufferable everyone around me has become. But you… _you._ ” He shakes his head reverently. “You’re different from anyone I’ve ever met in my life. Either in academia, or outside of it.”

“But—”

“Rey, you have more raw intelligence, more drive, more _talent,_  in this delicious little finger of yours”—he pauses, giving her pinky a gentle tap with his thumb—“than most of the other idiots at this conference have in their entire bodies.”

Rey doesn’t know what to do with any of this. She stares at him, stunned beyond speech, blinking stupidly as he continues to gaze at her like she hung the moon. His thumb is still tracing gentle, deliberate circles on the back of her hand. The floor is shifting, tilting, listing beneath her feet. The feel of his hand on hers is the only thing tethering her to earth right now. Keeping her from sliding out of this chair and onto the floor.

“Why are you telling me this now?” she asks. She hopes her tone isn’t accusatory. Because she believes he’s telling her the truth about what he thinks. She’s just... trying hard to understand. It feels like her brain is operating at half-speed as she tries to process what he’s telling her. “All these years, I thought…”

 _I thought you hated me, and my work_. _You’ve said so many hurtful things._

Ben has the decency to look sheepish. “I didn’t tell you earlier because I assumed you already knew how remarkable you are.” He gives her hand another gentle squeeze, and it feels like the sincerest, most intimate kind of apology. Rey’s heart leaps into her throat. “Because honestly—how could you _not_ know? You’ve accomplished so much in such a short time. And you’ve done it all on your own.”

He leans across the table until there’s nothing separating their faces but a scant inch of charged space. She can almost taste the red wine he’s been nursing since they got here. She can hardly breathe. A strange, utterly delicious tingling sensation begins creeping up her body from the base of her spine. She wants nothing more in the world to succumb to it. To succumb to this.  

“Do you have any idea how rare that is, Rey?” he continues. His voice is harsh, demanding. Impatient. In any other context she’d assume he was berating her. She knows, now, that nothing could be further from the truth. She can feel his rough exhalations against her lips as he speaks. It’s intoxicating. _He’s_ intoxicating. The tingling sensation creeps up, and up, and up her body, causing her to throb deliciously in a way that’s entirely new.

“How… how rare what is?” she murmurs, feeling out of breath despite the fact that she’s sitting completely still.

“How rare _what_ is?” he repeats, incredulous. “Rey—you pulled yourself up from nothing. From _less_ than nothing. You got accepted into a top-flight PhD program and then immediately landed a tenure-track position. All before you were thirty. All without any family or other connections to pave the way.” He closes his eyes, and opens them again, very slowly. “Do you have the _slightest_ idea how rare that is?”

“Actually… yes. Yes, I do know how rare that is.” This, at least, is a question she can answer, though part of her knows he only meant it rhetorically. She thinks of all the entitled douchebags she’s met over the past ten years who seemed to think they _deserved_ success simply on account of their last name. “I know it too well.”

“Of course you do,” he says, reverently. He’s still leaning across the table towards her, elbows on the table and chin in his hands. He smiles at her, then—a real smile; one that lights up his entire face, and makes his eyes crinkle up at the corners. The sight of him smiling like this, at _her,_ nearly takes her breath away. And makes her wish they were somewhere much more private right now than the middle of a fancy restaurant. The tingling sensation along her spine climbs higher, and higher, and begins to center itself right at the nape of her neck. It feels so good. _This_ feels so good. “I would have expected nothing less from you.”

“Then, why…” Rey starts, and then trails off, shaking her head.

“Why, what?”

“If you had this much respect for me… if you were so _impressed_ with me… why did you criticize me so much? I mean, you were so rude to me. Pretty much all the time.”

 _You made me forget who, and where, I am,_ she doesn’t say. _Your comments brought me right back to the streets of London, like no time had passed._

“Because, from the moment I heard of you, and read your papers, and saw just how brilliant and _good_ you are, I knew you needed a mentor. A... teacher, or something. So you could reach your full potential.” He palms his glass of red wine, and absently swirls it around inside the glass. He takes a very large sip ( _liquid_   _courage_? Rey wonders) before setting it back down on the table. “When I dug further, and saw where you’d come from, I worried you had no one to fill that role. So, I took it upon myself to be your teacher.”

“If you wanted to help me you went about it in the worst way possible.”

Ben sighs, and runs a hand over his face.

“Yes,” he says. His hand drops to the table. “I am aware of that. At least—I am aware of that _now._ ” He shakes his head. “At the time—especially at the beginning, when you were still working on getting your dissertation published—I thought I was helping you. I swear.” He gives another wry smile. “I have the social skills of a cactus, Rey. Of a _sickly_ cactus. But I recognize now that that’s no excuse.”

His expression, usually incredibly guarded, is so open right now. So tentative, and vulnerable. Even if he weren’t an alpha—an alpha whose scent she finds nearly irresistible, no less—Rey knows she’d still find every word he’s telling her right now completely believable.

“I’m sorry I ever gave you reason to think I hated you,” he continues, low and earnest. “I’m sorry my words didn’t _actually_ help you. And that they hurt you.”

“I believe you,” she tells him. “I do. And I’m... “ she trails off, searching for the best way to put her muddled thoughts into words. She bites her bottom lip; she can’t help but notice the way his eyes quickly flit down to her mouth, drawn to the movement.  “I’m sorry, too.”

Ben sits back in his chair, spine suddenly ramrod straight. “For what?”

“Well… for assuming you had it in for me for longer than was probably reasonable. I guess.” She stabs at her salad with her fork, just so she has something to do with her hands. “You actually listened to me, and stopped criticising me, after I point blank asked you to. That was kind of a signal, probably, that you didn’t mean any harm.” She pauses, another thought occuring to her. “Especially once you started calling me _Rey_ , not _Johnson_.”

“Rey,” Ben begins. And then trails off. He shakes his head. “You are… incredible.”  He leans towards her until his lips are just a hair's breadth away from hers. His scent is nurturing, and passionate—and, she realizes, suddenly, his scent is _hers_. All hers, for the taking. If she wants it. “You are the most brilliant, astonishing thing I have ever seen.”

And just like that, the tingling sensation she’s been feeling all evening is suddenly centralized on that... _spot_ at the nape of her neck. It starts to throb and itch and burn in a way she’s read about in cheesy historical romance novels but has never actually experienced in real life. It makes her whole body, her entire consciousness, contract until she can’t focus on anything but the alpha in front of her and the way the gland on the back of her neck—the gland that’s never before made itself known to her in any way, shape, or form—is glowing like a brand.

 _His teeth could quench this fire_ , she thinks, deliriously. _He could do it right now. I could get down on the floor, kneel in front of his chair, lift the hair off my neck, and_ —

“ _Rey_.”

Ben’s hand on hers has tightened to the point of near pain. But she hardly feels it. There is only his hand on hers; his lips, so kissable and so, so close; and a strange, desperate sort of need twisting its way through her body that feels like dying, and being reborn, all at once.

He leans in even closer, until he is burying his face in her neck and breathing her in. When he pulls back his nostrils are flared and his eyes are glazed, his fat black pupils blown wide with shock…

… and desire.

“ _Alpha,_ ” she whispers.

“Waiter!” Ben shouts, loud and hoarse. He stands up from his chair, shoving it away with so much force it crashes to the floor. He looks _ferocious_. Like an alpha who would happily destroy anyone who would dare stand in his way.

 _Yes_ , Rey thinks. Or maybe she says it out loud. She can’t tell. Her brain is so muzzy right now, so addled and confused, and—

She looks at him—at his hands, clenched into tight fists at his sides; at the front of his slacks, already tented with what will soon become an absolutely massive erection—and she _moans_.

After a few minutes (though to Rey it feels like an eternity), their server finally shows up. He’s out of breath, and carrying a small leather folio. He looks at Rey, and his eyes go very wide. He’s an alpha too, Rey dimly registers.

“Oh.” The server swallows. “Oh, _shit_.”

“Eyes to yourself,” Ben snarls, sounding more like a wild animal in this moment than a human man. He rips the check from the server’s hands, and stuffs an obscene number of bills inside it. He shoves it back at the waiter with so much force it makes the younger man jump. “My omega and I will be skipping the main course.”

A moment later, Ben’s arm is around Rey’s waist and he’s guiding her out of the restaurant.

“I’ve got you, Rey,” he croons reassuringly into her neck. He’s pulling her close to his side. He’s putting her into a cab. “I’ve got you.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I’ve got you.”

Rey sighs, sleepy and content. She lifts her head from where it’s resting on Ben’s chest so she can look into his eyes.

He’s peering down at her, head and shoulders propped up against the headboard, his dark eyes half-lidded and drowsy.

“I know you do,” she says. She closes her eyes, and rests her head on his chest again. He wraps his arms more tightly around her and presses a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “And… thank you.”

“Of course.”

She doesn’t remember much of their trip from the restaurant to her hotel. She’d been so delirious by the time they left he’d had to practically carry her into the cab. Once inside she vaguely remembers straddling him, right there in the backseat, and then grinding down on his erection as he writhed beneath her.

She thinks she begged him, loudly and repeatedly, to bite her. Though it’s possible she only _thought_ it as hard as she could and hadn’t actually said it. And she has no idea what, if anything, the cabbie said to Ben when they finally got to the hotel. Or what Ben might have said to him. It’s probably for the best, honestly; she’s pretty sure she would die from embarrassment if Ben told her now.

“Are you hungry?” His voice is a low rumble beneath her ear as his hand begins a gentle stroking motion up and down her spine.

She _is_ hungry. Starving, really. She’d gotten less than three bites into her salad before her…. _biology_ got the better of her and they’d had to leave.

“Yeah, I am,” she admits. She presses a kiss to his breastbone. Right over his heart. He rewards her with quiet noise of pleasure, deep in his chest. “But I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it right now.”

He chuckles softly. “Probably not.”

She’d pounced on him the second they got inside her hotel room. He hadn’t put up much of a fight. Less than a minute later he had her naked and pinned beneath him as he fucked into her with a ferocity she could hardly believe.

And now they’re knotted together in her hotel room’s queen-sized bed, making it impossible for either of them to get to the nightstand to grab a phone.

“As soon as we can move,” Rey says, “I want to order something. Lots of somethings.” Her stomach growls in agreement, making him laugh.

“Of course. I’ll get you whatever you want.” His hand resumes its stroking motions up and down her spine, and she sighs. Eventually, though, Ben’s hand reaches the nape of her neck—and he pauses when it brushes up against the edge of her still unbroken, still unbitten mating gland. She can feel his sharp intake of breath as he slowly, tentatively, slides his hand infinitesimally higher, and then finally covers her gland with his warm palm.

This, right now, is the first time Ben has ever touched this gland. What’s more, tonight is the first time Rey has ever _wanted_ someone to touch it outside of one of her heats. She knows it’s only through sheer force of will that Ben didn’t give in to her pleas tonight for him to bite her. After all, it’s what every cell in his body has been programmed to want since his birth.

His hand is moving again, his broad fingertips tracing the shape and contours of her gland, and drawing little loops and sworls across the gently ribbed flesh. A complex cocktail of thoughts and emotions flow through her as he does this, compelling her to burrow even closer to him, trust him, as he takes care of her.

But as wonderful as this feels—as much as the omega inside her wants to just lie like this, with him, forever—they need to talk about what happened tonight.

She licks her lips. “Ben?”

“Hm?”

She lifts her head again so she can see his face. His hand stills, but he doesn’t move it away from her gland. She wonders if he even can. He kept his head tonight, even as she lost hers. But surely his willpower, and his patience, can only stretch so far.

“I’m not ready,” she whispers.

At that, his hand slides slowly, inexorably, away from her mating gland and down her spine. She’s glad for it, and yet also strangely despondent, all at the same time.

“I know,” he says, quietly. He leans forward so he can kiss the tip of her nose. “Of course I know.”

She nods. “We… we hardly know each other, Ben.”

A pause.

“True.”

“And I’m… not certain why this even happened tonight. Why my… why my mating gland acted up like this tonight.” She pauses. “This has… never, ever happened to me before. I mean—not outside of heat.”

Though, truth be told, Rey might have an inkling as to what caused this. After all, it happened just as an alpha she’d spent the better part of three years thinking hated her, and who she found unbearably attractive, made it abundantly clear just how much she pleased him. Not just sexually, but in every imaginable way.

She just can’t help but think the two events might be connected.

“Yeah,” Ben says, very slowly. “It... _is_ pretty strange. I guess.”

They lie there in silence for another long moment, her head resting on his chest, his cheek pressed gently against the top of her head. His knot is going down, and he could slide free if he wanted to. But neither one of them are in a terrible hurry to pull apart.

And then, Ben says, “But I’d really _like_ for us to know each other, Rey.” When she doesn’t respond immediately, he adds: “If… if that’s something you also would like.”

She smiles. Cranes her neck so she can see his face, and presses a kiss to his lips. Chaste, at first; and then, after a moment, more heated.

 _Why not?_ she thinks wildly, suddenly so giddy it feels like she might float away.

“I’d... like that too,” she agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On to the epilogue! <3


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MILLIONS of thank yous to hipgrab, without whose help this fic literally wouldn't exist. And thank you to ohwise1ne for listening to me go back and forth (and back... and forth...) about this epilogue as I struggled, a lot, to decide how best to end this story.
> 
> And if you're reading this -- if you've commented, kudo'd, or even just lurked -- thank you so much for being here :D I hope you've enjoyed this fic half as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

**_Three Days Later_ **

Ben takes an Uber with her to JFK the morning after the conference. 

He doesn’t have to do this. To come with her. It’s been nearly ten years since she’s lived in New York, but Rey’s been to and from JFK often enough to get herself to the airport, and navigate it, all on her own.

Still, though. It’s nice to have him here, to share an easy, quiet moment with him on a Sunday morning, when she isn’t mad at him, and he isn’t saying unintentionally hurtful things to her, and they’re  _ also  _ not overpowered by hormones compelling them to fuck each other’s brains out. Her head rests on his shoulder, and the fingers of her left hand are loosely entwined with the fingers of his right. Their joined hands rest lightly on her lap, the ring he wears on his pinky finger reflecting the light from the rising sun and drawing her eye to the little hangnail she hadn’t noticed when she’d kissed those same fingers last night before bed. 

This, right here, feels… nice. A little strange, this quiet intimacy. A little different. She’s known of this man for years, and while she’s spent a handful of days in his company, every moment of every hour of every day they’ve spent together has just been so... fraught. 

Could she possibly ever get used to this? She doesn’t know. 

But she told him she wants to get to know him.  _ Really _ know him. 

She will do her best to try.

He turns his head a little and presses his lips to her temple. Ben likes having his lips on her body. On her hands, her thighs. Her sex. But when things are quiet between them, when  _ they’re _ quiet, his mouth always seem to gravitate right here, his lips finding purchase right where her pulse thrums most strongly through her veins. 

“Text me when you get home,” he says, low and urgent. It’s an instruction, not something he’s asking her to do but rather something he’s telling her to do. She knows it comes from his innate, immutable biological need to protect her, to take care of her, in all situations, at all costs. 

Even when she’s three thousand miles away.

Her heart clenches. Everything he’s done, all these years, no matter how poorly executed, he’s done because he wants to help her. To take care of her.

She snuggles closer to him.

“I will,” she promises.

He holds her a little tighter. Possessively.

“Good.”

 

* * *

 

 

**_One year later_ **

The minute Rey pulls her car to a complete stop in the Sacramento airport garage, the phone in her purse buzzes with a new text.

She pulls the parking brake--the car isn’t going to roll down a hill or anything inside a parking garage, of course; but old habits die hard--and lets out a long, slow breath.

_ He’s here _ , she thinks, stunned.

_ He’s here. He’s here. He’s  _ here.

And then:  _ But... he’s early. _

With shaking hands, Rey fumbles her phone from her purse and unlocks it so she can read the texts she just received.

She was right. He’s here.

**Plane landed.**

**in a cornfield, from the looks of it**

**And twenty minutes early.**

**Anyway. We’re taxiing now.**

**See you soon.**

Rey runs her fingers over his words and closes her eyes. She imagines her fingertips brushing over the contours of his muscled chest, rather than her phone screen. Under normal circumstances, this would be a tricky leap of imagination. But these aren’t normal circumstances. It isn’t long at all before her mind wanders further, and she can see him sprawled out beneath her in her bed, naked and willing.

And... here. With her.

At last.

It takes another insistent buzz in her hands before she’s snapped out of her reverie and back to the present.

**How close are you?**

Rey’s breath hitches when she reads the words on her screen.

She knows he’s not asking about her physical proximity to baggage claim.

She closes her eyes, and does a quick self-inventory to take stock of things. She’s running hot today, but not  _ that _ much hotter than normal. She’s wearing a pantyliner, just in case-- but it doesn’t feel like she’s soaking through her underwear just yet. Driving here was no big deal at all.

Nodding, she texts him back: 

_ I’m pretty close _

_ but i’m fine _

_ driving here was no problem  _

_ i still have at least another twelve hours _

She pauses, and reaches up with her right hand to cup her breast. She squeezes gently.

It feels… good. But not like she’s one second away from coming.

_ actually, maybe as much as 24 hours _

**Good.**

**That’s good.**

_ yeah _

**I’m still glad I decided to take an earlier flight.**

_ me too _

**Ok, Rey, they’re letting us off the plane now.**

**I have to go.**

**I’ll see you very soon.**

He sends her a little red heart emoji before going radio silent. Even after a year of nearly nightly texting sessions, Rey still can hardly believe her eyes whenever he sends along any sort of emoji as part of his message.

It’s been a year, and he still tries so hard to please her, as best he can. In everything he does. He doesn’t always manage it, is still painfully awkward and abrupt as often as not. But in emojis, as in everything, Rey is realizing, more and more, that it’s the thought that counts.

Her heart hammering in her chest, Rey slides her phone into her purse, and goes to meet the future head-on. 

_ See you soon. _

 

xxxxx

 

Rey has lived in Northern California for nearly a decade. And it took her no time at all to acclimate to the Central Valley’s uniquely endless sunny days. In fact, it took moving to Berkeley for her PhD for her to realize she probably suffered from a near-permanent affliction of Seasonal Affective Disorder throughout her London childhood, and then through most of college in New York City.

The moment she sees Ben across baggage claim from her, by the luggage carousel--already wearing the sunglasses she told him to bring, and dressed in casual jeans and a t-shirt that’s just tight enough to show off his ridiculously sculpted chest—she has a sudden, sinking realization that this adjustment might not be as easy for him as he’s assured her, repeatedly, that it would be. 

He was born and raised in New York. Aside from a year spent in Europe after college, he’s never lived anywhere else. And there’s just something about the way he’s…. standing there, in the middle of this very crowded, very  _ California _ airport that reminds Rey more of a fish out of water than anything else she’s ever seen in her life. He looks lost, somehow. And even more irritated with his surroundings than he usually does. The idea that a man like Ben Solo could live happily—or even  _ exist _ —in a place like this, where you can easily go months without seeing so much as a single cloud in the sky, seems… a little ridiculous, now that he’s here.  

People don’t really shout at each other here. At least, not in the way Ben is used to. And never while stuck in traffic. Her neighbors routinely smile and wave at her when they see her passing by. 

Are they about to make a terrible mistake? 

At some point, Ben lifts his head, and casually turns to look in her direction. When they make eye contact, the smile he gives her would outshine the California sun.

“Hi,” he mouths from across the room. 

He gives her a small, awkward little wave.

She smiles back, and goes to him.

 

xxx

 

“I don’t feel ready for Wednesday.”

Ben is sprawled out on her bed, arms folded lazily across his stomach. He takes up most of her bed, actually; when Rey bought it it hadn’t occurred to her she’d one day be sharing it with a giant alpha who dwarfed most normal-sized furniture. He’d looked on the verge of falling asleep when she started going through her email a few minutes ago, so when he admits this to her--probably the most vulnerable thing he’s ever uttered in her presence-- it surprises her enough that she jumps a little in her chair.  

She turns around so she can look at him. He’s wide awake now, eyes wide open and staring up at the ceiling.  

“Why don’t you think you’re ready for Wednesday?” 

He props himself up in the bed and leans back on his elbows. Sighing, he pats the spot on the bed next to him.

“C’mere.”

She gets up from her desk and goes to him, tucking her hair behind her ear as she does. 

“Haven’t you practiced your talk?” she asks, once she’s sitting next to him.

He looks at her, incredulous. “Of course I’ve practiced my talk.”

“Then what is it?” He can’t really be nervous about this, can he? Ben knows as well as she does that this job talk is just a formality. Berkeley wants him. He’s impressed the hell out of them every time he’s interacted with their faculty over the past ten years. Short of getting up in front of everyone on Wednesday and burping loudly in lieu of making his presentation, there’s really nothing Ben could do that would make this offer fall through.

He turns onto his side so he’s facing her. His eyes are bright, intense—vulnerable; needy—as he looks at her.

“It’s just… I want this,” he says. He takes his hand in hers, and gently runs the pad of his thumb along the back of it. “So badly. Being away from you for an entire year… it’s been…”

He doesn’t finish his thought. But he doesn’t need to, because she was there. For all of it. For the sexy Skype session they had to end early because being able to see, but not touch or smell, each other was the worst kind of torture. For that time she got the flu, and he’d gone out of his mind with worry, knowing she was here, and suffering, and there was nothing he could do to take care of her.

Berkeley is an hour away from here. Forty-five minutes, with no traffic. Still long distance, in a way. But closer. Much, much closer.

And if living in the same metro area as one another works as well as they think it will…

Rey doesn’t know when she started thinking of him as her mate. But she does, now. He doesn’t have to say the words for her to know he feels it, too.

“It’s been hell,” Ben finally finishes. He rolls over a little, and rests his head on his lap. “Being away from you. For a whole year.” He reaches up, and caresses the back of her neck. Touches her mating gland, making her shiver in spite of herself. “It’s been absolute hell.”

Rey moves her hand, and traces his full bottom lip with the pad of her thumb. She’s closer now than she was when she picked him up at the airport. She probably only has another six hours or so before she won’t be able to do much of anything but beg him for his knot.

Four, if he keeps touching her mating gland like that. 

But they can accomplish a lot in four hours.

“Let me hear your presentation,” Rey says. She leans forward and presses her lips to his. She can smell his pheromones pouring off of him in waves already; his body is already reacting to what’s happening to hers. But she can focus for the next twenty minutes or so. She knows she can. “I’ll give you pointers, if you think it might help.”

Ben opens his mouth to say something. But then closes it again. His pupils are dilating already, and his nostrils are starting to flare as her scent gets stronger, and more potent.

He shakes his head a little. Most likely trying to clear it.

And he smiles.

“I’d like nothing more,” Ben says. “I can use all the help I can get.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to come say hello to me on tumblr my SW/Reylo blog is [jeenonamit](https://jeenonamit.tumblr.com/)! (And given tumblr's recent shenanigans, i'm also on twitter now at [jeenonamit](https://twitter.com/jeenonamit/)).


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